A Certain Perfect Reality: Exceed
by MitsukiTachibana
Summary: The new school year has barely started and things are looking to be more interesting then the last several years for Yuko and Miyuki. The tenuous grip Miyuki has held on her school life is starting to slip and spiral out of her control as Yuko has begun to recognize the familiar darkness creeping in on them from all sides. Shouldn't kids just be able to be kids?
1. Level Upper

Author's note:

So begins the next installment in this series, _Exceed._ Like _Fragments_ , this is only some of the chapters involved in the story, only those that are sufficiently completed to be in any kind of readable form. This literally follows _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ Episode 12, _AIM Burst_ – for the most part rendering this story into the realm of Alternate Universe. It centers on Miyuki's contribution to this, so if she is unable to observe, the story does not switch to another character.

Continuity information: One point to make for clarity is that Miyuki has relented to using her father's family name of Ayanokoji. The members of G.E.O. will still tend to refer to her as Nakamura-san when appropriate or Miyuki otherwise. Uiharu and Saten were introduced to her at some point between the stories and she introduced herself as Ayanokoji. She also transfers from Garden of Education Judgment branch to 177, after the Eyebrow incident, due to their high workload verse that of the Garden's.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Reberu Appā

Misaka headed towards the door leading to the stairs from the Judgment office as she arranged the earpiece she had been given by Kuroko. She reached for the handle to the door as she tested the communicator's functionality.

"Kuroko do you hear me?" Misaka inquired while opening the door.

"Hai onee-sama, just… please be careful." Replied Kuroko her voice filled with worry.

Misaka smiled to herself as she exited the building, "I got this, don't worry."

Just coming up the steps as Misaka was heading down the same was Miyuki, looking a bit winded as she affixed her Judgment armband. "Oh, Misaka-san I managed to secure you a ride to the scene. Antiskill has a blockade setup on the highway, and traffic behind them is being diverted, but if we take surface streets we should be okay."

Before Misaka could respond, Ayanokoji gestures to her earpiece, switching it off. Misaka gives her a questioning look, but puts it on mute. Miyuki gestures to the sports car below.

"We don't own a Lamborghini Gallardo or Ferrari F430, my father is not a fan of Italian cars. However, a partner of his in business did give us this as gift and I managed to sneak out with it."

Not as exotic as the two cars she mentioned, but the metallic red, with dual white racing stripes, Ford GT (this is the GT40 inspired mid-engine sports car, not some meek Mustang) would get the job done.

Flashing the keys, Miyuki opened up the driver's side and slipped into the seat While waving Mikoto to the passenger side, she buckled her seatbelt. As Mikoto entered the car she gave Miyuki a questioning glare, "you can drive? But, we're the same age!"

Miyuki giggled a bit and stuck her tongue out at Misaka's comment, "well I know how to drive, but you know, not legally so, yeah. Heh, that's why I wanted you to mute the mic for a bit, what no one knows can't get me into trouble."

Misaka gave her a wry little smile as she finished securing her own seatbelt, "works for me, are you sure you're Judgment?"

She held up her hands defensively after starting up the car, "I'd only do this as an emergency and Uiharu-san being kidnapped by some stripper lady is definitely an emergency. Now hang on, this is a fast car."

The two espers were off speeding towards the Antiskill blockade, not at all observing the speed limits, and with Misaka carefully managing the street lights in their favor. The two of them arrived at the standoff location with only a half-dozen close calls and maybe only one life apiece shaved off their respective lifespans.

Misaka collapsed out of the passenger side onto her hands and knees panting, "I thought you said you knew how to drive?"

Miyuki scratched the back of her knew as she laughed nervously, "I have all the high scores at the arcade and I'm really good at Need for Speed…"

Taking a deep breath and shaking her head Misaka ran towards the gate for the utility walkway up to the raised highway, "okay Kuroko I'm here…"

Meanwhile, Miyuki secured the car and followed up after Misaka, using a bit of teleportation to shave off a bit of distance and effort in walking. At the top she found Mikoto standing defensively in front of a blue Lamborghini Gallardo and facing off against a tall woman in a lab coat.

"Misaka Mikoto… One of the only seven Level 5s in Academy City." The woman turned to face Misaka, the wind blowing the smoke and her hair, which coupled with her one red eye gave the rather dull scientist a sinister air as she continued her soliloquy, "I doubt that even you have fought against an opponent like me. Will you be able to stop me, when I control 10,000 minds as one?"

Mikoto coolly regarded Kiyama as she replied, "Will I be able to stop you, you ask?"

Miyuki joined her and with a look between them, Misaka replied while springing forward, "Of course _we_ will!"

The valiant rush was cut short as circular holes were opened up beneath both of their feet. Both girls were able to avoid the traps, but were briefly thrown off-balance. Both Mikoto and Miyuki avoided the subsequent blast Kiyama directed at their area. Mikoto pressed forward while Miyuki stumbled a bit brushing concrete fragments from her hair.

Mikoto squared off against Kiyama again, "You surprise me. You really can use many different abilities, huh?"

With a determined grin Mikoto readied herself for an attack, "I'm getting a kick out of this 'Dual Skill' of yours."

Kiyama slowly raised a hand, replying in the same even tone she had maintained this whole time, "My ability is different in method from that theoretically impossible one. You can call it… 'Multiskill'."

"Yeah that's not unoriginal at all." Miyuki quipped as both she and Misaka both dodged to the side of sheet of some kind of wind or force as it cut a swath into the street. Miyuki's attempts at analysis were all over the place. _I can't get a clear analysis on this, the interlocking fields are too dense to parse. I might need to just strip the whole thing and hope I can hold it or have an aneurysm._ Something should have stuck out as odd at how cheerful she was at that whole thought, but the fight was now, logic later.

"It doesn't matter to me what you call it!" Mikoto yelled as she charged her electricity, "It doesn't change what I'm going to do, after all!"

The bolt of electricity struck a dome of some sort, channeling the current into the ground. This caught both of them by complete surprise.

"What's wrong?" Kiyama asked with a bit of a smile, "You didn't expect me to be able to use multiple abilities at once?"

Miyuki frowned readied a fireball before teleporting right next to Kiyama, "try my multiskill, you old b…"

Miyuki did not get a chance to release the fireball or even complete her quip as a flying Antiskill van smashed into her side, tossing her all the way back and into the side of Kiyama's car.

She could barely make out someone screaming her name before darkness overtook her. In the swirling void she was vaguely aware of someone trying to rouse her, her body being shaken before the featureless void was assaulted by images, scenes of a teacher and children, of the slow building of bonds and affection, to experiments and a hideous inhumane decision of an old man that she found vaguely familiar.

The same voice tried again to rouse her and this time Miyuki responded with a groan. Uiharu's face slowly resolved in her foggy vision as the ringing in her ears slowly gave way to a voice, "…nokoji-san… Ayanokoji-san? Oh thank goodness you're awake. You're hurt, and your head is bleeding a bit. Don't move and stay awake, Antiskill medics will help you out. I'm going to check on Misaka-san."

Miyuki would have reached out to grab Uiharu to stop her, but in trying she painfully realized that her right arm was dislocated. The only good thing in this situation seemed to be despite her impact with a van, she had not lost her glasses. She might not need them to see normally, but they were useful interfaces for other reasons.

One of the Antiskill officers skilled in first aid had just begun to assess her situation when the most unworldly of screams she had ever heard pierced the air and spiked a hot knife of pain in her head. Distracted by the scream, it took a moment for the officer to notice her having collapsed and grasping her head.

"Hey are you okay?" Asked the officer.

The scream ended and the spike of pain disappeared, but it wasn't a moment latter that an even more powerful one poured forth from below, causing her even more agony. Her AR display registered 'Metamorphose' and an in-calculable telepathic spike, but she did not pay it any mind, her head was almost literally splitting open.

"The voices… pain… make it stop!" She cried clutching her head as tears streamed from her eyes. The Antiskill officer, not knowing what else to do readied a tranquilizer, but Miyuki grabbed it with her left hand, "no, no… it's okay, I got it under control just a bit overwhelmed for a second."

 _I left a telepathic circuit wide open when I was bombarded by… Kiyama's memories? I guess that's what that was… just need to shore up the defenses._

While she closed the circuit and re-established her typical mental defenses, the officer had wrapped her head a bit and applied other emergency first aid. As he finished, the AIM Burst rose up to the highway level causing Antiskill officers to engage it with live rounds.

"Stay put." The officer told her as he picked up his gun and joined in support of the others.

Not one to usually follow orders when interesting things were happening, she staggered over to the stairs down. Leaning against the wall it was apparent that her ankle was really hurting, though it only seemed to be bruised. Looking briefly at the wall she leaned on, she pushed off to a standing position. Steeling her courage, she performed one of the emergency techniques she had learned in her combat skill training with Yuko some years ago.

Miyuki stifled a cry as she forcefully re-seated her shoulder in the socket. Her vision swam and threatened to send her into unconsciousness, but she forced it down and steadied herself. After wiping the tears from her eyes, and catching her breath. She briefly tested her right arm to make sure she had some motion back before braving the stairs.

At the bottom she saw Uiharu and Misaka briefly as they both made their way under the bridge for some purpose. With her ankle protesting, she risked a teleport and appeared at the bottom. She quickly limped and managed caught up with the other two as they confronted Kiyama.

Misaka gave her a critical worried eye as Uiharu was conversing with Kiyama. Miyuki wasn't paying attention to their dialogue, her headache was a bit distracting. She waved off Misaka's stare, "Daijoubu, I've had worse."

That statement had Uiharu staring at her as well, "okay, maybe not really."

Again, the conversation was mostly lost to her, but she did catch the action plan and made an effort to respond to which Misaka abruptly interrupted, "and you will stay right here."

Misaka's tone brokered no argument and in a situation like this, even Miyuki did not see it wise to be stubborn so she merely nodded and slumped against the wall next to Kiyama.

As the adrenaline of the past few minutes wound down and with more pain then she had ever experienced in her life, she would have gladly given in to unconsciousness except that Kiyama had left the relative safety of the underpass to head out onto the field in pursuit of the AIM Burst.

"Chotto matte!" Miyuki called out after her. The injured girl made to follow the scientist, but when she put her weight on her ankle she was met with sharp pain, before collapsing to the ground. The fall, combined with all her other aches and pains, and the ever present dizziness, put her over the edge and she again passed into unconsciousness.

Miyuki did not know how long she was out, but a strange tone ringing in her ears forced consciousness upon her. When it ceased, she dared to open her eyelids ever so slightly. The huge beast that was rampaging seemed to be down, but from her vantage point she was able to see it open the multiple eyes scattered across its body.

Teleporting, she arrived next to Kiyama as she yelled her warning to Misaka. The Level 5 was not deterred though and after Kiyama directed her towards the core, she resumed her relentless assault. The sheer power of Electromaster shocked both of them.

Shaking off her awe, Miyuki focused on tearing apart the AIM fields surrounding the creature. Forgoing finesse for efficiency, she literally embodied her nickname of AIM Eater as she pulled material only she could see from the air and literally consumed it.

Misaka's discharged her railgun, ejecting the core into the open air. In a moment of pure ambition, Miyuki grasped a hunk of metal from the rubble, transposing it with the core at the moment of explosion. Acting quickly while both Kiyama and Misaka were distracted by the explosion and 'death' of the AIM burst, she hastily forced the damaged and destabilizing core into her own body. Once within herself, she de-rendered it into pure data dumping it raw into her C3's permanent storage memory.

Kiyama gave her a sidelong glance to which Miyuki merely shrugged as she grabbed a wisp of energy from the air and ate it, "I missed lunch?"

"Hmmm, I see." Kiyama replies in her dull toned voice.

The trio, with Miyuki supported by Mikoto, made their way back to the Antiskill officers up on the highway where Kiyama was taken into custody. The officer who had initially treated Miyuki's injuries was waiting for their return where he gave her a stern talking to as she was loaded into an ambulance bound for a certain hospital.

* * *

Daijoubu – used in this context as a statement that "I'm fine/ok."

Chotto matte – Wait a moment.

* * *

Extra:

Meanwhile, all the way across town, Yuko wanders about an outdoor shopping district. She is munching on a crepe as she shops, stopping briefly to use her raffle tickets.

With some amount of amazing luck, she wins the grand prize an all-expense paid trip to a famous and very exclusive hot springs resort.

After that, she takes a walk to a certain park. Feeling a bit thirsty, she decides to grab a drink from the local vending machine. Paying the required price, she presses the button for the drink she wanted only to find the machine is out of the flavor.

Sighing, she hits the change return only for the machine to spit out a ¥ 10,000 bill. She takes the bill and regards it with fascination before the vending machine suddenly spits out the can of soda she wanted despite it registering as out of stock.

She shrugs while pocketing the money and popping the tab on the can.

"What a thoroughly wonderful day." Yuko muses.


	2. Hysteria

Author's note:

This chapter actually consists of elements of two others, but I condensed and rewrote those parts and combined them. Rather than try and explain intervening events from the notes on chapters that would never get written, I worked all three chapters into one. This occurs during the events of _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ 's Big Spider arc though not the whole thing. It centers on Miyuki's AIM Core situation and involves more of _Index_ story involvement then I ever wanted, but you can't skirt around it easily when doing stuff like this.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters. I also do not own _The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Death Parade_ or the songs used.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Hisuteri

In a hallway of a certain hospital, a young female doctor flipped through the chart of a just recently admitted patient. This patient's medical docket designated this particular hospital as the primary care location regardless of circumstances. The benefits of rich ojou-samas and high level espers generally astounded the medical professional, but today, this ojou-sama was brought in with injuries akin to a tactical combat scenario, or a city riot, and she was a Judgment member on top of it all.

With the Judgment affiliation flag, the doctor initially expected a certain teleporter, she an infrequent patient of the hospital, but was informed it was some other teleporter. They couldn't be making clones of Shirai-san, no that's unheard of; no one was doing things as unethical as cloning. Plus, multiple Shirai Kurokos were a very bad idea, especially for a well-known electromaster.

After the girl was taken care of in the ER, she was given a standard Field evaluation and EEG. Several overlapping Field anomalies were detected and brain activity was irregular. At this point, her file required the consultation of a certain physician of this particular hospital before any further action could be taken.

Which is what brought her to a certain office door. Politely she knocked before opening the door, "sir? Do you have a moment?"

"Of course Doctor Tanaka, I was just finishing up some paperwork." Replied a voice from within the office.

Tanaka entered the office and took a seat in front of the desk, and the office owner, a shorter, balding middle aged man that many have considered 'frog faced', looked up from his computer screen, "what can I help you with Doctor Tanaka?"

Handing over the file in her hands, she replied unsure, "Well, this file is flagged as requiring your consultation before considering more than emergency medical treatment."

Heaven Canceller regarded the file catching sight of the picture, "Ah yes, young miss Nakamura."

Tanaka started, a look of confusion on her face, "Nakamura? She gave her name to the paramedics as Ayanokoji, the file lists that as well."

Heaven Canceller sighed briefly, "I see, well regardless, there are no special considerations with what I see in the ER report."

"Yes, but her Field evaluation came up with a number of anomalies, almost like there are multiple, different AIM fields being emitted at once."

The old doctor flipped through the notes to the Field analysis and EEG, "this is rather unusual, but I believe it's not unusual for her ability."

"But she's a teleporter, that's not consistent…"

The old man shook his head, "It's… a classified matter, and you will need to take my word on that. Suffice it to say that this girl is not just a teleporter."

Tanaka sighed, but her trust had never been misplaced in the old doctor, so she let it pass, "Understood, layers within layers. On a separate note, I'll need your authorization to request her current medication. It has an Alpha lock on it, some type of experimental medication."

Heaven Canceller regarded the medication for a moment and turned to his computer. He accessed the medical records information database and found very little information was contained on it except for the notation that it worked as an antipsychotic, antidepressant, and mood stabilizer. He clicked on the link for the pharmaceutical company, then to the parent holding company. Nothing seemed especially suspect, and he was about to authorize it when he noticed a name on the initial trial submission of the medication, Kihara Gousei.

"I'm not going to authorize this. An experimental drug is not recommended at this time, we have plenty of her previous medications and the records show she just recently started this. I'll take responsibility for this."

Tanaka nodded, somewhat relieved as the use of experimental drugs on kids never sat well with her. She retrieved the file and stood to leave.

"By the way Doctor Tanaka, did she happen to have any of this medication on her when she was admitted?"

Tanaka nodded, "I believe so, she had one of those little pop-top containers with the day of the week stamped on it. I wouldn't have noticed it if not for the cute cat stickers all over it."

"Could you please have it sent over, I'll return the container, but I want to have a look at this 'experimental medication'."

* * *

Miyuki stretched as she walked along the city street. The sun was warm and a cool breeze was blowing just enough to offset the radiance from above. It felt nice through her thin blouse, the perfect weather for jeans and said blouse.

The people around her gave her a brief nod as she passed and she smiled warmly. It had been some while since she had left to go to…

Where was she going? Miyuki paused in her walk and thought about that. For some reason she could not recall a destination, and it wasn't like her to just wander without aim. Perhaps she should head back to…

Where had she been earlier? For that matter, what was she doing before? Miyuki could not remember, and a sense of dread and fear slowly rose up from the core of her being. Where was she?

Looking around at the buildings, the people, even the sky, she could tell nothing from her surroundings. The sun was bright, maybe too bright if she really considered it, and it gave everything a washed out look, but despite this bright sun everything seemed just a little out-of-focus, a little hazy. The people as well had little to distinguish them, as facial features and anything more distinct then clothes, height, apparent age and such were shadowed or indiscernible.

Panic settled in her gut, turning about several times, the girl took off running at random. People and buildings rushed by in her haste and after some time, she found herself in the center of a downtown area at the intersection of two large streets. The run had not been long, but she felt very tired, she tried to catch her breath as she looked about.

The people still milled about just out of her immediate area, and remained just as indiscernible as before. Panic still there, she turned about frantically, looking for anything that might give her some clue to what was going on.

"Ano, are you alright… y… you seem lost and well..." A voice spoke from behind her.

Turning quickly, Miyuki felt a bit dizzy and shook her head to clear it, before her stood the first discernible person she had seen since being, where ever here was. She had long dark brown hair that reached her lower back, with a part of it tied off to the side of her head and left hanging down. Her eyes were golden colored and she wore large glasses. She was wearing a Kirigaoka Girls' Academy school-designated blazer and skirt with a red necktie.

"I'm not sure… I don't remember what I was doing or where I am. I know I'm Miyuki, but what am I supposed to be doing?"

Hesitation now gone, the new girl smiled, "well Miyuki-chan, I am Kazakiri Hyouka."

"Kazakiri-senpai, what is with everybody here?"

Hyouka looked about for a moment thinking of an answer, "Well, they just are the way they are. The Imaginary Number District is a rather separate existence from Academy City. You are like the presence I felt earlier, but also different."

Miyuki gasped taking a step back from Hyouka while looking about wildly, "the City of Shimmers, how can I be here… wait the AIM core. I must not have isolated it properly and it might be bleeding over."

"Speaking of which, what I meant to ask you when we first met…" Hyouka said as she pointed towards Miyuki's body.

Miyuki looked down at herself and found a large wet looking stain on her middle from which greenish wisps drifted off and towards the ground. She felt the spot with her hand and it came back wet with a metallic golden substance.

"I… I… don't know. I don't feel any pain, but I am a bit lightheaded I think. Tired and dizzy, but I thought that was just panic and exhaustion from running."

Hesitantly, Miyuki pulled up her blouse and found an odd almost digital looking crack on her stomach. It was like she was made of pixels and the form had fractured. From this 'wound', pixels bled. Miyuki looked up at Hyouka with panic in her eyes, "help?"

Miyuki stumbled as her legs gave out due to shock and Hyouka caught her settling her down to the ground.

Hyouka tried to reassure her, though she herself was not confident, "it's okay, you're not in any pain, so that's good."

"I thought not feeling pain in situations like this was bad!" Miyuki said in a panic.

"I wouldn't know, but I think I can fix this. Your core is damaged, I can contain the damage, but you will need to repair it yourself."

"How do you know that?" Miyuki questioned.

Hyouka shook her head, "I don't know, I just do and I am confident this is correct."

Placing a hand above the fracture, Hyouka acted mostly on instinct, willing the fissure closed. Surprisingly it seemed to work, both ends of the fissure coming together, leaving only golden digital trace line in its place.

After Hyouka was done, Miyuki had a brief moment to smile in thanks before an overwhelming sensation of falling overcame her, "ugh, what's happening?"

"I think you are going back, I think you were attracted to this place because of your current condition and it has been remedied so you are going back."

With those words, Miyuki drifted into unconsciousness.

* * *

Yuko found herself surrounded by five very smug looking delinquents. Thinking on the situation, she might avoid these kind of situations if she would just stop taking shortcuts through back alleyways and service areas. However, why should uppity, wannabe toughs restrict her choice of pathways in the city?

"Look what we have here boys, a spoiled little rich kid esper. You gonna cry now?" A bulky, brute of a high school boy taunted. His words emboldened the others.

Another of the thugs added his own thoughts with a taunt, "Yeaah, you espers all look down on us Level zeroes, but that changes now. After we are done with you, you'll need to take you meals through a straw."

Yuko sighed, _I'll try a bit of intimidation through power use. I'd rather not fight if I can just get them to leave me alone_. Concentrating her power into her fist, Yuko punched the ground sending strong shockwaves radiating around her through the concrete.

Though they tried to hide it, their confidence was shaken. Yuko stood up, bringing her right hand up and slowly closed her fingers into a fist before throwing it open, releasing a telekinetic burst from it, "Let's just go our separate ways, 'k?"

The barrel of a gun was pressed against the side of her head, "How about, no. Now we are going to beat you up and if you don't resist, I won't shoot you dead."

 _They escalated the force, not me_. Without hesitation, Yuko quickly moved her head back a bit as she brought both arms up simultaneously, one on the outside of the assailant's gun hand, while the other grabbed the gun and twisted it away from her.

The action was so fast, that by the time the gunman's reaction had caught up, the force and angle of the disarm had broken his trigger finger. He stumbled to the ground holding his hand while screaming.

Yuko, meanwhile, ejected the clip and cleared the chambered round before discarding the weapon. She warily regarded the other assailants, "now…"

Before she could continue with her declaration, a high pitched whine of sound assaulted her ears. It caused a sharp pain in her head and a sensation close to vertigo, affecting her balance a little. It primarily made it impossible to form a coherent thought, disrupting her ability use.

"How you like that? Now we are going to mess you up!" Yelled one of the Level zeroes as he bore down on her with a bat.

Years of training and conditioning allowed Yuko to push back the pain in her head and the inner-ear imbalance enough to allow her to respond physically. Unlike most of what these thugs call spoiled rich girls, Yuko was skilled in unarmed situations.

Her response to the thug with the bat raised over his head in a heavy strike was a roundhouse kick to his midsection. Followed up by disarming his bat and driving her elbow into the back of his neck.

Now armed with a bat and more skilled in unarmed combat then her assailants, she made quick work of them.

Tossing the bat, Yuko stumbled out of the alley and down the street a ways before the sound assailing her senses finally ceased. Sliding down a wall and into a sitting position, the young girl panted with exhaustion.

"I hope Miyu-neesama forgives me for not visiting her today, but I think I'm going back to our room and taking a nap."

* * *

In a certain hospital room, a tall red haired girl reclined in a chair near the bed of one of her oldest and closest friends. Fujiko Kana was dozing off when the pink haired girl in the bed began to stir.

"Wait Kazakiri-senpai!" Miyuki called out as she bolted to a sitting position in her bed. She immediately regretted this action as her head threatened to split open.

"Oh you're awake! Who is Kazakiri?" Asked Kana from her chair next to the bed.

Miyuki stared at the redhead with a confused expression while trying to cope with the pain in her head, "she… I… uh, what…" Miyuki's eyes widen and she tosses off the covers and pulls up her hospital gown to examine her stomach.

"Gah, what are you doing?" Kana yelled as she quickly turned away.

Finding no mark, scar, or wound, the pink haired girl looked towards Kana for a moment, blinking, before her face suddenly turned bright red and she quickly pulled her gown back down. "I had a weird dream… no that sounds worse. Nevermind, forget what happened!"

After a few moments of awkward silence, Kana speak up, "so, glad to see you awake. When the dorm mistress informed Yuko-chan of you being in the hospital she barely told us anything before rushing over here, you know."

Laying back down, Miyuki groaned in frustration with herself, "Oh, geez, I'm a horrible grande soeur to her. I hope she is okay, I never got much of a chance to tell her what was going on."

Kana sighed, "Yeah, she was here all day on the first day and yesterday. You've been sleeping for a few days now. I convinced her to do something else for a bit to get her mind off of things, and she apparently did some kind of swimsuit modelling with those Tokiwadai girls who have been by a couple of times."

Miyuki nodded along with Kana, mostly hearing what she said, as she located her glasses and slipped them on. She began accessing her file information to start an analysis on the AIM core. If that wasn't a dream or hallucination she had, then she definitely needed to address that thing before it caused other issues.

"Say, Miyuki-chan. What's going on with you lately? When have you been so gun ho about Judgment work? I heard the perpetrator hit you with a van. You could have been killed, you know?"

Pausing to look down at her lap, Miyuki took a shuttering breath and replied in voice barely above a whisper, "I know. Kiyama-sensei, would never have seriously injured a kid. She reacted on instinct when she hit me, but at the time, I had no way of knowing her intentions and I won't know those of others either. I'm not sure why I want to get involved in these things, but I've been feeling driven to help others and serve a bit of the greater good I suppose."

While discussing things with Kana, Miyuki was also examining a graphical representation of the Core she had obtained from the AIM Burst. Conceptually the Core was both data and how the human mind comprehended the intrusion of pure thought and AIM Dispersion fields into our physical reality. Her simulation rendered it as an upright triangular golden ingot. The middle of its surface held a scratch, or a crack across it. The graphic rendering when she absorbed and dumped it into storage memory showed it with a noticeable fissure deep into the center of the object.

Kana was shaking her head, "I, don't even know what to say to that. I'd like to say you changed, but no one changes so drastically in such a short period of time without extreme circumstances and all."

Miyuki paused her work on the construct and sighed, "I suppose something like that did occur. You know Kana-chan, do you ever feel like you are just a bit part, like minor characters, or just living some side quest line to someone else's major story?"

Meanwhile across town in District 10.

Mikoto sneezed and paused in her walk through the decaying streets to rub her nose. Kuroko also paused and looked up towards the older girl.

"Onee-sama?"

Mikoto waved her off, "I just sneezed Kuroko," She laughed a bit while adding, "Someone was probably just talking about me."

"Onee-sama, such a thing is just superstition." Kuroko's eyes widened and she looked about frantically, her hair strands twitching about like octopi tentacles, "However, if someone is talking about my onee-sama…"

Mikoto felt the temperature drop by several degrees near her and she shivered.

Also across town in a certain area.

Touma paused to sneeze violently. A small, irritable nun in a white habit spun around and punched him in the arm.

"What are you doing?! You are supposed to be buying me food! I'm hungry!"

Touma sighed as he examined his wallet, watching as a moth drifted up and away from it, "such misfortune."

Back in Miyuki's hospital room.

"Don't be silly Miyuki-chan, this is not some anime or something. Plus meta stuff like that happens in poorly written fan fiction, you know."

A few familiar voices drifted in from the hall and a moment later the door opened. Entering the room and immediately brightening up at seeing an awake Miyuki, Fumiko and Becci-chan rush over and hug the surprised girl.

Still at the door, a nurse smiled happily, "oh, you are awake. I'll be right back." With that said, she exited the room and back into the hall, presumably to advise a doctor on the change of condition.

The nurse and Dr. Tanaka both returned a moment later. Tanaka bemusedly viewed the scene of several girls smothering her patient to death with hugs while chattering aimlessly about things she could barely understand due to the speed at which they spoke.

Clearing her throat she drew everyone's attention, "I appreciate your enthusiasm with the awakening of your friend, but this is a hospital."

Quickly the other two girls composed themselves and bowed very formally in apology.

"No harm done, now Ayanokoji-san, most of your injuries were sprains and severe bruising. Your shoulder will be sore for a while and I recommend using a sling for a week to immobilize it while you sleep. However, we'd like to keep you a couple more days because of the concussion."

Miyuki sighed, a few more days seemed like an eternity thinking about it now. Ever since she woke up, a restless anxiousness burned in the background of her mind. Now, faced with the prospect of more time cooped up in a hospital room in bed, those feelings rose to the surface.

Kana and the rest of the girls gave Miyuki sympathetic smiles.

"Since you are now awake, we don't have to worry about intravenous or injectable medications, so you can take your medications orally. Well, rest up, I will check on you a little later."

Dr. Tanaka exited the room leaving the nurse with the previously mentioned medications, who handed the small cup with pills to Miyuki along with a glass of water.

She examined the collection of pills recognizing the immediately, "um, what happened to my one medication… these are my old ones."

"Well, from what I heard, all the way at the top the doctors decided that an untested, experimental medication was not a good choice during your recovery."

Miyuki continued to stare down at the medication in the little cup. A very slight tremble in her hand had to be suppressed as she took a deep breath, "O…Oh, that… it should be fine and all. T…Trust the doctors. Thanks."

Popping the contents of the cup in her mouth and downing the water, she took her medication with false cheer and a plastic smile, "thank you ma'am, if I could speak with my friends some more before visiting hours end and their curfew arrives?"

"Just touch the call function on the touch screen if you need anything."

After she left, Miyuki released the breath she did not know she was holding. Bowing her head she steadied herself, "so…"

A hand rested on her shoulder and Miyuki turned towards its owner. Kana's smile was a bit strained, "okay girl what's wrong?"

Miyuki waved her hand, "It's nothing really…" A sharp pain in her head caused her to cringe as a small amount of static charge was released.

She looked over at her AR display that she was using to analyze the AIM Core and it displayed a one-hundred percent complete analysis and fully compiled. The prompt displayed a question "initialize?" with yes and no buttons. She tapped the "Yes" and the system began initialization and boot up.

"You're playing with your AR interfaces again, I can tell." Fumiko stated, "You can fool the staff here, but we're your friends, we can tell. I know you are doing something strange, you are shedding a lot of low level EM waves and eating a lot of bandwidth on the hospital WIFI."

"I'm… wait WIFI?" Miyuki turned her attention to the 3C's management interface. The AIM Core integrated fully into the OS at the Root level.

**********************Interface Prompt**********************

 _.Admin_Root: System_status (admin_root=AR* 3c)_

 _.CORE: *********_

 _System_status:_

 _0.65 Core_

 _0.55 Supplementary Functions_

 _0.99 Auxiliary Processes_

 _0.00 Level_Upper Network Interface_

 _Priority_directive = Restore*CORE*_1.00_

 _.CORE: $ supo ro CORE su_

 _.CORE_Root: *sudo –b admin_root [nakamura-ayanokoji_miyuki]_

 _.CORE_Root: Manifest=NISE*tenshi &&0.12_Emer*mode_

 _.Admin_Root: what?_

**********************END**********************

Miyuki paled and looked up at her friends who were gathered around her, "Girls, I think you need to go… scratch that, RUN!"

Kana blinked and reached out towards Miyuki, "what's wrong? You aren't making any sense, you know."

Before she could make contact, Miyuki's back arched as light erupted from her eyes and mouth for a brief moment before settling back down and closing her eyes.

Kana turned towards Becci-chan, "go grab the doctors!"

" _Wait_!" Said Miyuki, turning everyone's attention back towards her. She appeared normal except for a glowing luminescence to her eyes and a barely substantial yellow halo. So that is to say she did not look normal at all.

"Miyuki?" Kana asked.

" _Yup, what say we get out of here?_ " Asked Miyuki in a really sweet voice.

Both Kana and Becci's eyes dulled a bit, but both sported bright smiles none the less. Speaking in unison they both nodded briefly, "sure!"

Fumiko backed away as she grimaced, her AIM dispersion field interacting with something and causing a spark of electricity.

" _Oh Fumi-chan, let's not be difficult. I just need to fix something and for that I need a lot of people. The best way I can think of is a concert of Gee-oh_."

Fumiko crackled with electricity, forming her trademark plasma arc blade, "You're not well right now Miyu-chan, let me just go grab a doctor… please."

" _Don't worry everything will fine as soon as I get through_ …" With concentration Miyuki's eyes flashed and with a burst of electricity, the barrier broke, "… _there_ , _that should be better_."

Fumiko grimaced as her electromagnetic shield shattered and for a moment nothing changed. Then her arc blade dissipated and she looked up at Miyuki, cheer in her voice, but eyes just a little dull, "Sorry, don't know what happened there Miyu-chan."

" _No worries_ , _let_ ' _s get going_." She paused and looked at the hospital gown, " _Perhaps I should change first_."

* * *

The next morning, Yuko was searching the streets of the District.

She closed the screen on her smartphone, Yuko had tried calling Miyuki, Kana, Fumi, and Becci, but no one was answering their phones. She had gone to visit Miyuki this morning only to find she was gone. What was worse was the fact that the hospital had no idea she was gone. She looked around, people went about their business, but no sigh of her senpai.

Stopping to catch her breath against a streetlamp, _this aimless running is getting me nowhere_. _I have no idea where to even look next_.

Sliding her finger across the touch screen on her phone, she placed a call to the local Judgment branch.

"Hello, Judgment Branch 177, how can I help you?" Spoke a familiar voice.

"Uiharu-san? Hi, this is Sonoda Yuko. I need help. Miyu-neesama has disappeared from the hospital and they don't even know where she went. What's worse is she didn't come back to our room and all the others are gone too!"

"Sonoda-san, please slow down." Uiharu calmly replied into her headset, "Ayanokoji-san went missing from the hospital, okay, your other friends too?"

"Yes, I don't know what is going on Uiharu-san. I was hoping I could have some help from Judgment, maybe someone has seen something?"

Uiharu sighed, "I'm sorry Sonoda-san, but there's a lot going on. Konori-senpai is… out at the moment and Shirai-san is investigating a case with Misaka-san."

"Then what am I supposed to do Uiharu-san? What if she's hurt somewhere again… if I have to wait the full time to file a missing person report, it could be too late."

"I… wait your other friends… Ayanokoji-san… they are all part of a band right? Well, it's almost too coincidental, but we received a report of a strange public disturbance, some type of guerilla concert or something like that going on."

Yuko perked up at that, "That's something at least, give me the location and I'll check."

"Here, I'll text it to you. I hope you find her. I wish we could help more, but we are overwhelmed right now with all the incidents going on."

"Thanks Uiharu-san."

Checking the location Uiharu sent, she pulled up the GPS and started off at a run in the direction of the disturbance. It took ten minutes of running, but as she got closer, the familiar sounds of Girls Esper Overdrive urged her on. A large crowd of people gathered around a hastily erected stage and she spots Miyuki is up on the stage in her Shidarezakura Academy uniform with the other girls. It seems the girls had just finished the song she had heard as she approached and were launching into their next one.

God Knows... by Hirano Aya; _The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi_

kawaita kokoro de kakenukeru

gomen ne nani mo dekinakute

itami wo wakachiau koto sae

anata wa yurushite kurenai

muku ni ikiru tame ni furimukazu

senaka mukete satteshimau

on the lonely rail

watashi tsuiteiku yo

donna tsurai sekai no yami no naka de sae

kitto anata wa kagayaite

koeru mirai no hate

yowasa yue ni tamashii kowasarenu you ni

my way kasanaru yo

ima futari ni God bless...

todokete atsuku naru omoi wa

genjitsu tokashite samayou

aitai kimochi ni riyuu wa nai

anata e afuredasu Lovin' you

semete utsukushii yume dake wo

egakinagara oikakeyou

for your lonely heart

yamete uso wa anata rashikunai yo

me wo mite kore kara no koto wo hanasou

watashi kakugo shiteru

kurai mirai datte

tsuyoku natte unmei kaerareru kamo ne

my wish kanaetai noni

subete wa God knows...

anata ga ite watashi ga ite

hoka no hito wa kieteshimatta

awai yume no utsukushisa wo egakinagara

kizuato nazoru

dakara watashi tsuiteiku yo

donna tsurai sekai no yami no naka de sae

kitto anata wa kagayaite

koeru mirai no hate

yowasa yue ni tamashii kowasarenu you ni

my way kasanaru yo

ima futari ni God bless...

During the song, Yuko tried to get closer by moving through the crowd. However, the density of people made that impossible. She felt a little dizzy as she backed out of the crowd, but shook her head. While looking over the crowd, Yuko noticed faint wisps of greenish energy drifting out of the crowd where it was drawn to Miyuki and absorbed by her.

She maneuvered around the crowd and through the obstructions this part of the city had just as a natural part of its construction. Finally around the crowd, she made to approach the stage from the rear, but the band was preparing their next song. They seem to have added a pair of Shidarezakura girls with brass instruments and invited a guy in a very loud red blazer. She was again forced to wait.

Over the PA, Miyuki introduced the new guy, "We have a guest vocalist today, this next song requires a different register then I can reach. Please give it up for Takaagi Shinhoji*"

"Thank you!" Waving, he counts them down, "one, two, three."

Flyers By Bradio; _Death Parade_

kou nattara ii na no mousou to genjitsu ni

isseki o toujite kosei o migake

kakaenayamu nandai o mata hitotsu shoukyo

atama kara ketsu made sore ga wa ga entame

Boom, boom, boom,

dancing through the skies

mada shijainai sa himotoita shourai wa

Boom, boom, boom,

dancing through the skies

daichi kettobashite motto maiagatte

Everybody put your hands up

saa flyin tsubasa ni nare

mitemitai na muchuu ni nareru kimi

ima da seichouki shinsekai e

modokashikute mou douka shiteru

mugamchuu nareru mono ga hoshii

fugainai hiidetenai nante kawaikunai ne

konpurekkusu wa sakate ni totte orijinariti

Boom, boom, boom,

dancing through the skies

yaranakyabyou de yamadzumi no mondai mo

Boom, boom, boom,

dancing through the skies

motto waruagaite shoutai o abaite

Everybody, put your hands up

saa flyin, sono imeeji de

kitto nareru sa naritai jibun ni

sagase you're the one oobutai e

Flyin wasureteta

Flyin kioku no naka de

mou ichido mune no takanari o kike

Everybody put your hands up

saa flyin tsubasa ni nare

mitemitai na muchuu ni nareru kimi

ima da seichouki shinsekai e

Everybody, put your hands up

saa flyin, sono imeeji de

kitto nareru sa naritai jibun ni

sagase you're the one oobutai e

Flyin, wasureteta

Flyin kioku no naka de

mou ichido mune no takanari o kike

Finishing with a flourish, Miyuki grabs the PA and yells out at the cheering crowd, "thank you Academy City, good night!"

Yuko climbed from the 'backstage' area, but Miyuki winks out leaving her guitar behind. The other band members stumble about shaking their heads.

Yuko approaches Kana, "Fujiko-san, what's going on? Why were you all and Miyu-neesama playing a concert in the middle of the city when she's supposed to be in the hospital?"

Kana looks confused for a few moments, "I, I," Shakes her head, "we were in her hospital room, Miyuki-chan… something happened, a glow or something, I don't know. All of a sudden I'm here and you are asking me a question."

"Oi!" Came a call from the front of the crowd, "you dismantled my storefront for your stage!" The speaker, an irate chef, gestured wildly to the cafe behind them. It was indeed missing all of its front railings and fixtures, as well as all the metal outdoor furniture in its sidewalk front seating area.

Yuko looked around and noticed the whole of the crowd looked confused, looking to Kana she spoke with authority, "Fujiko-san, please call Anti-Skill." Turning to the man who spoke up, she gave her best smile, "I was directed here by the local Judgment Branch, please tell me what happened while we wait for Anti-Skill and I will help as best as I can."

The chef nodded, "the singer and those others," he gestured to the stage, "showed up outside. The singer and that one, uh Fujiko-san, just began rearranging all the metal parts of my cafe's front."

He paused briefly, "I ran outside to yell at them while one of my servers called Judgment. I, I, remember yelling at that singer, but for some reason when she turned her attention to me things didn't seem all that bad or matter much. I just wanted to watch her show?"

Yuko raised an eyebrow to this, but several others in the crowd also started to chime in with similar stories. Whatever they were doing did not seem to matter, the show seemed more interesting.

Kana briefly gazed at her own hand before nervously scratching the back of her head, "I don't really remember that, but that is definitely my power you know. So, do you have a picture of the front? I'll get to work fixing that."

Yuko gazed off towards the horizon with a sigh, "senpai, what is going on with you?"

* * *

End Notes:

Kihara Gousei - this is a made up Kihara and suffers from the "Sir not appearing in the film" situation. It isn't too hard to figure out what the name means.

** This is before the events that first featured Kazakiri Hyouka, so she is not aware of what she is. However, what she does was mostly on instinct, both she and the AIM Burst are artificial angels of different circumstances of creation. Instinctively the Burst sought out the only other thing that was similar to it and Kazakiri instinctively knew what to do.

** Miyuki's situation does not mean she's now Level 5 or beyond. She is now technically an artificial angel, but that doesn't mean anything until much, much later. All it does at the moment is cement her as the linchpin and 'administrator tool' of the "Artificial Heaven" Project. Her mode designation id is Nise Tenchi (NISE_Tenchi) which means false angel.

Takaagi Shinhoji - Just a bit of an change to the name of the actual lead singer of BRADIO, Takaaki Shingyoji.

** If you want translations to _God Knows..._ or _Flyers_ , look them up.


	3. Lone Wolf

Author's note:

This chapter continues on from the last. Yuko gets to star in this one and takes a page from Makoto in regards to going on the hunt solo, just without the silly frog mask. In her defense this is before Makoto's first lone expedition, and Yuko is trained for this kind of thing. This occurs during the final events of _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ 's Big Spider arc.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Kodoku okami

"Tadaima."

Entering her empty dorm room, the Yuko sighed. She sat down hard on the edge of her bed, briefly, before laying down completely. It had taken quite a while to clear up the mess with the guerilla concert and even longer with Anti-Skill. Just when Kana-senpai and the others looked like they were going to be hauled off like delinquents, a man in a dark suit and sunglasses had shown up. Kana spoke casually with his, calling him 'Sebastian', though whether that was his name or not was not apparent. Somehow, a tablet message and a well-timed phone call to the lead Anti-Skill officer's phone had seen the release of all the G.E.O. girls without so much as even a scolding.

When Yuko had asked, Kana had waved her off telling her not to worry about it. It was another in a largely growing stack of questions Yuko was going to have for her grande soeur when she was found.

Yuko groaned and rolled onto her right side, casting her gaze to the empty bed across from her. _How am I going to find her… a teleporter… and I don't even know why she is doing all this, I don't have any leads._

The young girl, in frustration, scratched at her head with both hands while pounding the bed with both feet, "Mou! I hate being left out of things."

Before she could delve too much further into frustration, a chime sounded on her room's Interface console. Perhaps a little too eagerly, Yuko rushed over to the unit next to the door and hit the answer button.

The dorm mistress's face appears on the tablet sized LED touch screen within its own window. Yuko's hopeful face drops noticeably triggering a drop in the dorm mistress's expression that she unsuccessfully tries to hide behind a cheerful smile. "I apologize if I am disturbing you Yuko-chan, but I was wondering if Miyuki-chan was in."

Quickly correcting her downcast demeanor, Yuko cheerfully responds, "I'm sorry Mizuhara-sensei, I was just hoping it was Miyu-neesama, not that I'm not happy to see you…"

Mizuhara brightens up a bit before replying, "It's okay Yuko-chan, it is just that the hospital called and a certain doctor wants to speak with Miyuki-chan about something important."

"I don't suppose…"

Mizuhara shakes her head, "sorry, even if they told me, I could not convey it to anyone but her."

Yuko nodded, "Thank you Mizuhara-sensei, I'll convey the message."

Closing the link, Yuko stands near the door for a few moments in thought before grabbing her phone off her bed and heading out. The hospital might be unrelated, or have nothing at all, but it was a lead and right now a slim chance was better than nothing.

A bit of time later, at a certain hospital, Yuko maneuvers the hallways that are increasingly becoming far too familiar to her for her liking. Not that she has anything against hospitals, but she would prefer not to be too familiar with them. Reaching the floor with his office, Yuko knocks on Heaven Canceller's office door.

"I wasn't expecting anyone, but please come in."

Yuko enters the office and takes a seat at the desk. The doctor looks at her with a confused expression for a moment before settling into a neutral one, "I'm afraid I can't relay any information regarding Ayanokoji-san's file to anyone but family or appointed delegates. I'm afraid I don't have you listed as either of these Sonoda-san."

"I know. I don't have anything like that… but she's gone, she hasn't come back. She left this hospital, having checked herself out, even though the last I had heard she was supposed to stay for observation. There is something wrong, something is going on and I don't know how to find her." Yuko looked down at her hands, "Judgment and Anti-Skill won't help, even if this was a normal situation, not enough time has passed to file a missing person's report and as a listed teleporter…"

The doctor nodded, "I understand, but…"

Yuko stood, planting both her hands on his desk and leaning towards him with tears at the edges of her eyes, "Please! What if she is hurt somewhere… alone… calling out for help? There are people going around attacking espers, using something that disturbs our abilities. She wasn't one-hundred percent when she left here, no way after what she went through, what if they found her…"

Sighing, the old doctor looked down at the file on his desk for a moment before he opened it, "I'm sorry Sonoda-san, I cannot divulge any information to you. You seem a bit distraught over this, let me get you a glass of water. It might take me more than a moment though, water coolers on this floor have been acting up lately. I'll have to check the floor below."

Yuko, distraught as she was, it takes her a moment to realize, but she catches on and nods, "uh, yes that would be fine."

When he leaves, she quickly moves around his desk and scans over the documents in Miyuki's file. Most of it is medical records and not of concern for her, but she makes note of the analysis the doctor had ordered on her 'new' medication. Biochemistry wasn't until second year for Yuko, but her Organic Chemistry class in sixth grade helped identify key parts in the study. One component, Polyampitriptyline Chloriazephroxide, was indicated to both heighten the sensitivity to suggestion and was also considered highly addictive.

Yuko frowned at that and took note of the medication's producer, a 'Yayadyne Pharmaceuticals', and saves that for later as a definite lead to investigate. Finding all she could deem useful and now with another lead to look into, she takes her seat just as the doctor returns.

The doctor takes note of the file briefly, closing it, before handing her the cup of water. "I do hope you understand now, having had time to think about it, why I cannot reveal patient confidential information to you Sonoda-san."

Taking the cup of water and downing it quickly, Yuko nods in the affirmative, "Yes sir, I understand now. If you will excuse me, I need to get going. Thank you for your time, uh, and the water."

Yuko wasted no time making a straight as possible line for Judgment Branch 177. If anyone could find information on something like this, it would be Uiharu Kazari. Otherwise she would have to rely on Akamatsu-san's electromagnetic hacking ability, and unfortunately she wasn't very adept at it. If she was the betting type, she'd stake her allowance on Misaka-san being able to do the same thing and probably be much better at it as she was a Level 5. However, Misaka-san was likely still busy, so her best bet was Uiharu-san.

Not too far off from the hospital, relatively speaking, Judgment Branch 177 sits on the second floor of an older five story office building. Carefully entering, she finds naught but Uiharu present and the flower haired girl is busy working at her desk.

"Hey Uiharu-san, I was wondering if I could ask you for a bit of a favor?"

Uiharu looked up from her screen with a small, weary smile, "I'm sorry Sonoda-san, but all the other members of the branch are, indisposed at the moment. Saten-san should be here in a little while, and the rest of us have some… investigating to do."

"I was just hoping you could look up a name of a company for me."

Uiharu nodded, "Sure, I'm sure Shirai-san or Konori-senpai…" The normally cheerful girl paused, looking downcast briefly before perking back up, "They'd probably scold me for 'miss-using' Judgment resources. What's the name?"

"Yayadyne Pharmaceuticals."

Nodding Uiharu's fingers fly across her keyboard. Within a few minutes the young girl exclaims, "Ah, found it."

Leaning over Uiharu's chair and reading over her shoulder, Yuko reads the information, "not much to go on, it's located in District 10. Mostly produces industrial pharmaceuticals for export. Huh, oh… Kihara Gousei."

Yuko stands back up straight with a dark scowl on her face, "that's a name I recognize and not one I appreciate."

Uiharu's eyes widen, "Kihara… that name, Kiyama-sensei and her children… that's not the same…?"

"No, I remember that one from what Miyuki told me. That was Kihara Gensei, I'd like to meet him some day." Yuko wickedly scowled as she clenched her right hand into a fist.

"Sonoda-san…"

Yuko shakes her head and attempts to laugh off the dark mood a little, "sorry Uiharu-san. Thanks for the info. Could you send that address to my phone? I really need to get going. Ja ne."

Uiharu nods making a few swift motions with one hand as the other reaches for a chocolate pocky.

As she exits the Judgment office, Yuko plots out the route on her phone and heads for the nearest bus stop.

In District 10, not more than a block or two from the bus stop, she finds the building containing the offices of Yayadyne. An industrial park and warehouse-like building next to a metropolitan water pumping facility.

Scoping out the facility, Yuko reminded herself of the sacred words of discrete site observation. _Act casual, but don't look like you are acting casual_.

"This place is not very secure or protected, at first glance. Basic CCTV with huge holes in coverage, and a few generic security guards." Yuko mused to herself, "I think I can sneak in here, but have to do it at night. I guess I'll need a few things and a change of clothes. Nothing makes for easier identification then distinct and very noticeable school uniforms."

Checking her phone again, she locates the nearest shopping area and frowns. What she would need is simple stuff, but ten did not have nearly anything in terms of shopping. Luckily being close to seven, it was a simple bus ride over to fifteen, Academy City's primary shopping district.

Despite being a shopping district, literally, finding some things was a challenge, especially nondescript clothing. Fashion was the passion here in District 15. Eventually, she finds and buys some fairly normal, nondescript clothing consisting of a long-sleeved black shirt, black leggings, a short skirt and a baseball cap. She also procured a tote bag for her uniform, and some additional supplies like rope, a flashlight, a few bags of marbles, duct tape, and some good, comfortable gloves.

"Ugh, I still have a while before I can get things started. I should probably eat something."

Grabbing a bite to eat doesn't take as long as she would have liked and so she spends the rest of the time in a local coffee shop planning out her activity and silently wishing she had some kind of floor plan for the offices.

When the time was as close as it could get, based on her travel time, she caught another bus back to the station at District 10. Carefully moving through the district streets, she approaches the building and takes another look at the overall site making note of the differences due to artificial lighting. The massively large gaps in coverage gave her an almost completely shadowed approach to a side entrance that was fairly concealed from street view, if it wasn't for a light directly over the door.

Quietly moving over the fence via a bit of telekinetic assisted movement, she prowled through the shadows. When as close as she could get to the door, she focuses her ability on the light. Using a tiny amount of force, she snaps the filament disabling the light.

Hoping for all the luck that could muster that area this door lead into wasn't some security guard staging area or highly populated room, she unlocks the main door by manipulating the tumbler mechanisms in the lock.

Carefully she cracks the door open to find a dimly lit and thankfully empty service hallway. Slipping in, she quietly closes the door. Taking a moment to look around, the other doors here lead into the janitor's office and some storage areas, based on the door labels. The hallway lead out into another hallway that contained mostly conference style rooms.

Walking right, she follows one half of the hallway till it bends left. At the bend though, was a door for the stairwell.

"When in doubt, go up. Important people like to have offices above everyone else."

Unlike the portion of the building she entered into from outside, the second floor was a largely open area full of cubicle like desks. The far end of the room from where she was appeared to be large laboratories separated by thick glass walls making them completely see-through. Straight ahead from the stairwell, were a number of small private offices and a very large one.

Yuko noticed rather quickly she wasn't alone on this floor and luckily for her. The labs had a number of individuals in lab coats and environmental suits, who were occupied with various tasks. Yuko had to be careful as she moved towards the largest office.

Using cubicle walls as cover, she reached the door to the office, manipulated the lock telekinetically and slipped in. The office was dark and the large windows did little to offer illumination in the dark of the night. Unfortunately, due to the people in the labs and the big windows, she could not simply just flip the light switch on.

That's what she bought the flashlight for, and its bright blue light helped illuminate the desk. She adjusted her gloves and held the small flashlight in her teeth as she rifled among the papers on the desk. Work orders, accounting ledgers, and miscellaneous paper work was all she found. The computer was locked, and no password note was found in the typical places. She wasn't a computer expert or an electromaster, so the easy way of obtaining information was closed to her. The files and papers in the desk drawers were equally important, but utterly useless to her.

Leaning against the outer glass window, she expressed her frustration was a small huff and groan. All her rather illegal activities amounted to a lot of wasted efforts.

 _It was a long shot anyways, I don't even know what I expected to find._

Below and just briefly, Yuko catches sight of a girl entering the neighboring warehouse. She blinked and shook her head, she could have sworn the girl was wearing a Shidarezakura uniform. It was hard to see from here, and it was brief. _That couldn't be a coincidence?_

From the office, she could see the entrance she thought she saw the girl enter and it had a pair of guards in some police grade body armor and some type of side arm, SMG with a long and thick barrel attachment. Probably integrally suppressed SIG MPXs if she had to field a guess.

As she carefully back tracked her path back to the area she entered from, she silently wished she could teleport. Some advanced theories conceptualized means that a sufficiently advanced telekinetic could duplicate similar effects, but she was nowhere near that kind of mastery.

Such musings filled the gaps of time in travel between the office building and the warehouse. From behind a public utility transformer, she observed the entrance, guards, and remaining areas of the building. The warehouse had window vents, just big enough she could fit through, at under the roof level. That was at about the six meter mark.

The guards were not hiding, but they were not standing out in such a way to be easily seen. Now closer, she could identify the weapons as SIG MPXs as she had thought. They were using integral silencers, were secured to the guards' vests via professional looking harnesses for ease of carry and quick deployment. Ability or not, she did not want to have to go direct against armed opposition unless she had to.

To that end, she focused on other means of entering. Most of the area was well lit except the corners of the building.

 _Convenient_. _I hate this kind of coincidental convenience, it screams trap. What choice do I have though, I don't have all night._

With a small sigh she used her ability to carefully and slowly open the small window before levitating herself quietly over and into the warehouse.

She found herself in the far corner of the building that was mostly full of pallets of shrink wrapped boxes. They made a veritable maze across the floor to the exact opposite end where it opened up into a clear area. In the ceiling area there were catwalks crossing the entirety of the warehouse. She contemplated exiting and moving over to the side of the building that corresponded with the open area from outside and entering there, but decided against it. She was in, but she wasn't going to navigate the maze, instead she moved up into the shadowed catwalks.

A few moments of silent observation from the shadows showed no movement or any other guards up in the catwalks, only the sound of people talking over from the open area. So unless the place was guarded by ninjas, the two outside were the only observable security.

Yuko prowled across the catwalks until she reached the open area. A pair of guards lingered near an open cargo elevator shaft, meaning at least a sub-level below this warehouse.

She listened in on their conversation.

"...ow who that prissy rich girl thinks she is prancing around here like she owns the place. The director says his little mindbender has her under control, but I don't know. She just keeps giving me that knowing smirk." The shorter of the two said.

The second one, taller and more heavyset, laughed, "You're just paranoid. The product makes her susceptible to his little error's mental bite. Though why she came here, I have no idea. Still I think you shouldn't worry. Still, I wish she had waited for me to finish my smoke before she went down, this thing is slow."

The elevator arrived finally and the two boarded it. The big one hit the button as the other took a seat on a box, taking a swig from a Mt. Dew bottle. He placed it on the neighboring box as he leaned back a bit.

When the elevator had made it sufficiently below the level of the floor, Yuko quietly dropped down from the catwalk and padded over to the edge of the elevator shaft. She took a quick peak over the edge to eyeball the two security guards, neither were looking up so after ducking back she was able to watch more intently. The elevator descended about fifteen meters and apparently arrived at the floor it was intended as the two guards exited under were she was crouched.

She waited for a minute, before leaping into the shaft and using her ability to safely and quietly land on the elevator floor. It was a heavy wire mesh grating and she could partially see through it enough to realize that solid concrete was beneath the grating, meaning this was the only sub-level accessible by this shaft at the very least.

Yuko reached for the handle of the metal door just as it swung open.

"I forgot my Dew… oh shit, what the hell are you doin…"

With a cold, expressionless demeanor, Yuko drove her TK assisted fist into the guards gut. The air knocked out of him, he reflexively bent forward as he grasped at the area of impact. The small middle school girl executed a crescent axe kick to the side of his head, which was now at a much easier height for her to hit. This staggered him even further and lined him up perfectly for her to land her foot on the ground and perform a sharp pivot, bringing her backfist against his sensitive neck. Quickly she pivots around again bringing another backfist up into his forehead which was already moving downward due to the other blows. Finally, using a TK assisted back kick, she cleares him from the door, and smashes him into a box.

The other larger guard was shocked by this turn of events, a small girl just took out his partner in a blink of an eye. He went to bring his weapon to bare, but the moment he spent in awe of the girl's attack gave her the opening to dash right up to close quarters with him.

Yuko, unlike the guard, did not hesitate. She used her power to forcefully eject the magazine as she used her hands to clear the chamber, ejecting the round. To his credit, he recognized the futility of continuing with his gun and stepped immediately into delivering a two handed push in an attempt to control the distance between the two of them.

Having accomplished the neutralization of his firearm, Yuko allowed him to clear some distance between them as she stepped back to avoid his hands.

The guard pressed forward aggressively with a heavy punch leveled downward at her head. Yuko, recognizing the size and reach of her opponent, quickly stepped to the side of his punch and within reach zone. The punch was stopped as she brought her arm up and forward, using the energy in both her hips and the elbows to press forward and strike his jaw with her fist. Continuing that energy, she continues to press forward with the blocking hand to drive it across his extended arm and up into his jaw as well.

The guard staggered back, stunned. With the briefest of smirks Yuko leaped up turning her whole body and bringing her leg up in a crescent arc that put her foot into the side of his head. The impact spun the larger guard around once and then into the ground where he stayed.

"Ugh, I really didn't want to have to fight."

The resounding clicks and snaps of guns being brought up to bear gave her a wordless answer to what she would be doing yet again. Six guards armed with SMGs were bringing their weapons in line with her small body. Yuko with a bit of a showmanship's flourish, executed very wide sweeping motions with both her hands, as well as precise foot work. Both of these movements were in a fashion very similar to what an old master in a mystical Kung Fu movie might do to execute some chi maneuver or secret technique. For these guards though, merely their guns were forcefully torn from their grasps and roughly flung into the far ends of the room.

It is hard to fathom what drives the mind of the typical 'mook', but somehow the idea of numerical superiority was enough to encourage an aggressive response then the act of simultaneous telekinetic disarms did to discourage said response.

The resulting quick, efficient, and brutal exchange lasted only a few minutes. Though by no means boring, it did not redefine the action martial arts genre. She did get some use out of the marbles though.

"Geez girl, what are you a Chinese infiltrator or something? Where would a kid like you learn Wing Chun?" Inquired a younger brown-haired man in tactical gear. He appeared to have stood back while the others engaged, but unlike the others he had a pair of silver bars on his collar as a rank insignia despite not appearing much older than a high school student.

Keeping the same neutral and even expression, she answered his question with silence.

Shaking his head, he chuckled, "man, what kind of organization employs a stone cold contractor like you?"

Not changing her expression, she shrugged, "It would have to be one darker than black… ops."

With exceptionally rapid and skilled movements, very reminiscent of those of a praying mantis, he assumed a ready stance, "unfortunately for you my Kung Fu is stronger and here is where you will be stopped… is probably something one would expect to hear after all your action up to now, but other than stopping you here, I'm not one for clichés."

"Yet you said it anyways." Yuko replied as she studied him for a moment before letting the briefest of smirks slip. Instead of slipping into her previous stances, she started ringing her hands out loosening them up before moving off to the side with a fast, almost skipping, foot movements. She was dancing lightly shifting weight between her right and left feet.

She closed the distance a bit but did not attack, only keeping her footwork moving and her stance fluid with her arms up but not in a specific style he recognized.

Tiring of the wait, the lieutenant surge forward with a leap throwing hand strikes with both his right and left hands rapidly.

Yuko's loose stance made it easy for her to dodge each of the multiple blows, but she did have to give ground to do so.

A kick and a quick hard elbow strike had her quickly moving back and away from her attacker, never losing her rhythm.

The lieutenant again rushed forward with a hand strike to which she responded with rapid, jackhammer like punches to his torso. Enhanced by her telekinesis, the strikes to his body and face had him reeling. One rash attempt at a heavy strike at her head over balanced him as Yuko ducked under it and swung around behind him landing a strong punch to the back of his head that laid him out.

He made one weak attempt to rise before sighing and slumping to the ground unconscious.

Seeing no other immediate threat, Yuko proceeded forward through the darkened area. At the far end was an area illuminated by a bright light from above. Arranged were numerous crates upon which one reclined Miyuki seemingly without a care in the world.

Carefully Yuko moved into the lit area, keeping an eye out and her guard up, and spoke loudly in an even voice, "Miyu-neesama? Are you okay?"

Sitting up Miyuki gave her petite soeur a small smile and casually replied, "oh hey Yuko-chan."

"Miyu-neesama are you…" Yuko started, but was interrupted by Miyuki.

"Hold that thought Yuko, it's time for the clichéd villain entrance and arrogant soliloquy."

A slow clap started off to Yuko's right as a small, gray haired Japanese man in his late forties or early fifties entered the light. "Always with the snark Ayanokoji-san. Some might see me as a bad guy, but I'm only doing what I have to in order to re-establish my research and funding."

The man was followed by a young girl of Yuko's age. She had grayish silver hair and amber eyes and was dressed in a simple tank top and track pants without shoes. The girl said nothing but focused her gaze on Miyuki.

Miyuki approached the man and young girl steadily, giving the man pause. "Now… Miyuki-chan, your friend has given us a lot of trouble. Benio-chan, could you please persuade her to take care of this problem for me?"

Yuko tensed, she did not want to fight her grande soeur.

Benio shook her head, "I… I… did, but I don't know what went wrong…"

The man's eyes went wide as Miyuki stepped up next to him and grabbed him by the tie bringing his ear over near her mouth, "spoiler alert, I never was under her control. I figured out a while ago that this medication I was using was causing an issue, ironically thanks to Shokuhou Misaki-san… it… cost me a lot to secure an understanding with her Odagiri-san."

Odagiri tore his tie off, but before he could move away from her, Miyuki touched his shoulder and he was smacked to the ground under heavy gravity pressure. He lost consciousness within a few moments of pressure.

"Aww, geez, he's out already. Now who am I going to do my monologue with?"

Yuko took a step forward, but the other girl squeaked.

Benio started backing away and Miyuki's eyes widened and she locked eyes with the scared girl, "Benio-chan, no… no, don't worry. It's over, he doesn't own you. No one owns a person, that is sick and wrong."

The girl slumped her shoulders and sunk to her knees, "… freedom… but, what am I going to do? You get to go back to your fancy school and rich life, but I'm now homeless and still a child error."

Miyuki bent down and offered the girl a hand, "how would you like to go to Shidarezakura Academy? You're a smart girl, with a bit of extra work you can catch up easily and your ability is strong. You'd get in easily. I can help, and I will."

Benio hesitated then meekly took it, nodding, "I'm sorry for what I did."

"You didn't do a thing, I was playing all of you. I was having a bit of another issue when the doctor and you caught up to me… but I've been working with Antiskill to bust up this little ring of his. Yuko-chan here had to jump the gun though." Miyuki said while pointing a thumb at her junior.

"Mou! Miyu-neesama, I was worried something was going on… why didn't you tell me?" Complained Yuko as she stamped a foot.

"Maa, maa Yuko-chan… I… I'm sorry. Antiskill should be arriving up above, what say the three of us get out of here? I need to make a call to my father about Benio, then I think we should call it a night." Miyuki lead the two towards the elevator as the sounds of helicopters and sirens could be heard from the elevator shaft.

* * *

End Notes:

In _Exceed_ , there was originally a chapter planned early in this arc, before Level Upper, where Miyuki goes to Tokiwadai Middle School to meet with the Principal and the student council to make arrangements for a Girls Esper Overdrive concert using their main auditorium. However, she is intercepted by Ringlet curl girl posing as the student council representative. She is lead into an encounter with Shokuhou Misaki. Here she learns about the effects of the medication and Miyuki is forced to 'pay' concessions to Misaki for the information and to be 'let go'. Without much mental defenses and easily susceptible to her power, Miyuki concedes.

Yuko is trained in Wing Chun as it is an art of war designed to maim and kill, so it is brutal. Her Wing Chun is vastly different from what one might learn these days. She is also trained in other unarmed combat styles as well as seamlessly blending it with her telekinetic ability. A TK user is deadly in a fight, even more so when trained in actual combat techniques.


	4. All My Friends

Author's note:

I debated about using the Poltergeist Arc at all because of its uncertainty in the canon. However, I realized I already broke that when I forgot to edit out Kongou Mitsuko's appearances across _Fragments_ and _Exceed_. This occurs during the entire events of _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ 's Poltergeist arc.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters. I also do not own the song _Kung Fu Fighting_ by Carl Douglas.

Thanks to ShugoYuuki123 for the follow and favorite, it is a long over due for me to acknowledge this. Thank you, also, to the anonymous reader (or readers) for all the help catching spelling errors and mistakes along the way.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Tomodachi zen'in

In a quiet and dimly lit room sat a lone figure, cross-legged. She wore a simple black sweatpants and a short white tank top. Her eyes were closed and a neutral expression alighted upon her face.

 _I must focus. Build the layers, overlap, electromagnetic fields… vary their frequencies, stack them like sand bags. In so doing, I can regulate the AIM Diffusion field… bolster the barrier between me and the sting of telepathic intrusion._

Akamatsu Fumiko further regulated her breathing, focusing on her past training in Kendo and the Akamatsu clan's own style of karate to order her physical and mental states.

Still the _feeling_ of Miyuki-chan's influence against her own thoughts caused a brief hitch in her otherwise regulated breathing. That hitch was caused by fear.

 _I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer, it is the little death that brings total obliteration._ Steeling her resolve, Fumiko again focused her thoughts, _I will face it, allow it to pass over me, allow it to pass through me. I will not fear._

Small arcs of electricity played over her form, running down her fringe and pony tail and giving a slight glow to the hairclips positioned one on each of hers bangs. So thorough was her focus that the rumbling of the building did not rouse her attention. The shaking grew rather strong, knocking over practice dummies and a few equipment racks, but not drawing Fumiko out of her mediation.

A few moments after the end of the earthquakes and the chaos with the training equipment, Fumiko opened her eyes and stretched. She was about to stand when she noticed the condition of the equipment in the room.

"What the heck happened in here?"

* * *

"There is one thing that is clear about this recent rash of earthquakes." The Anti-Skill presenter Yomikawa Aiho announced from the presentation floor. "Getting right to the point, these are not earthquakes. To be precise, it is what we are terming as poltergeisting. Very reminiscent of unscientific paranormal events,"

Yomikawa paused briefly to allow the murmuring among those present to die down before continuing, "as some students will undoubtedly start carrying on about, so let me drive this home ahead of time, this is not a paranormal phenomenon. The cause of poltergeisting is simultaneous, multiple incidents of RSPK Syndrome."

The presentation screen behind the presenter progressed in its slides to one explaining RSPK Syndrome.

"RSPK Syndrome?" Inquired Konori Mii.

Genuinely intrigued, Kuroko spoke the part she was curious about out loud, "Multiple, simultaneous incidents?"

Uiharu straightened up and paid more attention to the presentation details with a determined frown on her face.

Miyuki frowned, _Recurrent Spontaneous PsychoKinesis Syndrome, a subconscious and uncontrollable outburst of power due to an esper's loss of control over themselves._

The Yomikawa continued, "At this point, I will ask Therestina-san of the Multi Active Rescue team, to explain further."

Gesturing to the brown haired woman in glasses who had stepped onto the presentation floor, and handing her the mic, Yomikawa exits the stage leaving Therestina alone.

"Ehhh… as you heard from that introduction, I am Therestina, from the Multi Active Rescue team."

The presentation continued focusing on the phenomenon and the probable cause of the earthquakes. Therestina emphasized the spreading of rumors leading to the possibility of mass hysteria breakouts that will escalate the number of casualties in the incidents. Finally she stressed the reason for bringing Judgment into the meeting was to request they see to it that students do not spread rumors about such things for the fun of it.

After they were dismissed, the girls of branch 177 collected near the front, making plans for how they would spend the rest of the day now that their meeting had ended.

Uiharu was anxious to return to her new roommate and Shirai was reviewing the itinerary and making note of the Anti-Skill meeting after theirs.

While she and Konori-senpai discussed some of the particulars of the meeting, Miyuki received a phone call.

"Moshi moshi, eh? Oh, Yuko-chan!" Miyuki walked a slight distance away from the other girls as to not compete with their discussion while on her call, "gomen nasai, I completely forgot about the meeting with Antiskill. Oh, good, I'm glad the girls weren't too put out I missed helping them with their open house. Yes, I remember our open house is next week, Gee-oh is putting on a concert for it…"

"Ah! Saten-san! Where are you right now?" Yelled Uiharu loudly.

Miyuki giggled, "yup, that was Uiharu-san."

* * *

"… and the whole room was a disaster. I was in such a deep meditation that I wasn't even aware of what was going on."

Miyuki waved off the comment as she and two older friends exited the main Shidarezakura administration building. The two junior members, minus a certain new telepath, were waiting outside. Becci had just handed Yuko her MP3 player, and laughed heartily at the confused faces Yuko was making to her arrangement of songs.

Upon seeing them, Becci abandoned her MP3 player with Yuko and waved enthusiastically to her senpais.

Kana waved back and laughed a bit as she commented on Miyuki's handling of the situation, "We're just glad you were able to keep them from carrying her off to that particular hospital for observation because of some kind of SBD syndrome or something."

Miyuki gave Kana an exasperated look, "RSPK, not SBD, I'm… I am not even going to comment on that."

"So, about that new girl… Saito-san…" Rebecca began as the two groups linked back up, "she's a mind reader?"

Miyuki rubbed at her arm, feeling a little guilty, "I'm sorry for just hoisting her on you and into your room like that. Sometimes I forget how much pull they seem to give me. I didn't mean to up-turn Takatsuki-san so suddenly."

Becci-chan giggled a slight bit as she answered, "Aya-chan was so miffed when she came back from classes to find all her stuff, including her bed moved all the way across the dorm."

Miyuki nodded, "I'll have to find some way to make it up to her. Anyways, yes Benio-chan is a type of telepath, but hers is more of influencing both subtly and overtly. Trust me when I say that with an electromaster's defense and the handful of techniques I've picked up from our… less gifted telepaths, I'm not under her influence."

Becci-chan quirked an eyebrow at Miyuki, "that is what someone being controlled would say."

"I…" Began Miyuki as her phone began ringing, "just a moment, moshi moshi… Oh, Misaka-san! No, the girls were just finishing up with the Garden dorm's open house."

Miyuki paused as Misaka Mikoto explained something to her over the phone, the voice was just barely audible to the rest of her friends so they waited patiently for the results. After what sounded like a rather interesting conversation, complete with some other voices in the background, the pink-haired girl nodded, "Yes, I was thinking about going to the Academy City Fireworks Show. Our dorms relax the curfews… hmmm? Oh…"

Miyuki paused to laugh a bit before continuing, "No I'm not laughing at you both, I've always heard Tokiwadai dorms were really strict. One of the reasons I like Shidarezakura. You have a very compliant teleporter though, I'm sure she has a plan about that. Sure, we will meet up with you all for the fireworks."

Becci-chan clasped her hands together with Fumiko's, "That's right, the fireworks! We get to wear yukatas!"

Fumiko wryly grinned and sweatdropped, "Becci-chan, sometimes you are such a returnee."

"Mou!"

* * *

After an enjoyable few hours entertaining themselves with the games and various treats of the Night Stands, the group of girls decided it was time to meet up with the other half of the social circle from their rival school as well as the girls from the 'out-in-town' school.

The five of them, the newest member Saito Benio still had a few more days at cram school before her catch-up exams to get her in line with Shidarezakura's curriculum, had just caught up with Misaka and the others. A few rounds of introductions and everyone, who was not already, was acquainted with one another.

Shirai was sighing about something her onee-sama had done and before that could go any further, Saten drew all their attention to the rather official looking gray and maroon heavy trucks.

"Huh? What are those trucks?" Saten asked as she turned to look at the vehicles in question.

With the air of one who was used to explaining things to those who were uninformed, Shirai answered, "MAR, the Multi Active Rescue team's trailers."

"M…A…R… Multi Active Rescue? Sounds like someone really wanted their name to spell MAR." Kana commented.

"One would not know." Added Shirai.

Uiharu mused, "They must be here as a countermeasure for all the poltergeisting."

This drew immediate attention and comment from Saten, "Poltergeist?! Then, the rumors are for real!"

Miyuki held up her index finger and waved it in an authoritative way, "Now, now Saten-san, one should know better than to believe silly rumors, let alone spread them around."

While the other girls discussed the implications of all the rumors and the effect all the security might have on fireworks watching, Yuko was focused on the vehicles and operatives themselves.

 _What could they possibly need such heavy duty trucks for? They are way too reinforced for just command and control suites, or personnel transportation… unless the personnel being transported are multi-purpose robots or powered armor troops._

Her attention was drawn back to the group where it seemed Saten had come up with a good idea as Fujiko Kana was busy clapping her on the back enthusiastically.

She was further distracted from her thoughts by Miyuki grabbing her by the hand and leading her off towards the stairs that lead up the Hillock.

The MAR questions could wait, now was a time for fun.

* * *

Yuko didn't know what happened other than sudden and very severe shaking, followed by the collapse of a section of the concrete platform they were just on.

What she did know is that Uiharu and her friend Haruue were saved, and that those heavy vehicles transported Power Suits.

"HsPS-15s…" Yuko commented.

Miyuki raised an eyebrow at that, "interesting hardware for investigative work."

Therestina smiled, "these are used for clean-up and rescue operations, I assure you."

MAR operatives moved into the area, securing a safety perimeter and deploying scanning equipment. Not too long after, emergency services vehicles began arriving.

Haruue, who was not physically injured, at least not obviously, was being taken to the hospital for evaluation. Saten and Uiharu were with her as the MAR medics evaluated her onsite.

Kana, Fumiko, and Becci were heading back down to the Night Stands for another round of snacks before heading back to the dorms.

Miyuki, Kuroko and Mikoto were occupied in a discussion with Therestina about something very official looking. It was not that Yuko wasn't interested or worried about the Poltergeisting, but it was more that she was out of her element in regards to the whole thing.

No, this was the kind of thing that Judgment and Antiskill, and she supposed MAR as well, were more equipped to handle. Plus, as Shirai liked to point out she was one of the civilians. A thing that did not stop Misaka though and who's comment brought her attention back to the other's conversation.

"Tampering with AIM diffusion fields… could there be someone else who is capable of that?"

Mikoto and Miyuki shared a brief look, though it took a few moments for Miyuki to realize who Mikoto was referring to. Kuroko and Therestina, though turning their attentions to Mikoto, did not seem to know what she was speaking of.

Miyuki made eye contact with Yuko and teleported over next to her before taking her hand, "let's go catch up with the others."

Yuko nodded as she was pulled along by her grande soeur. The girl was sure things would only be getting more interesting.

* * *

Yuko sighed as she gazed out the window at the bright cheerful day. Her teacher's dull voice droned on about some aspect or another of Personal Reality. Almost two days of the same everyday school life taunted her after her proclamation on the night of the fireworks show.

Absentmindedly, she tapped the MP3 player in her pocket and a stray thought filtered into her bored mind, _Oh that's right, I totally forgot to give Tanizaki-san her MP3 player back._

Prowling around the MAR facility was probably not the most legal thing to be doing, but a frustrated Ayankoji Miyuki was at her wits end with this case. Uiharu and Shirai were at odds in a not-so-passive aggressive, disagreement, over Haruue's involvement in the Poltergeisting incidents.

Miyuki had to agree with Shirai on the logic around it, but something bothered her about the whole situation and she also did not want to get between the arguments. She had known Uiharu for a short time now, Shirai quite a bit longer though never to the level they were all at now, but it was not her place to interfere.

Sighing, she put her head against the cool glass of the window, "What am I doing here? What do I even expect to find?"

Before she could continue that line of thought or even comment on this habit of talking to herself, Miyuki noticed a girl in pajamas, who looked vaguely familiar with that fan, confronting a lab coated individual and a powered suit that was carrying a familiar person.

"Misaka!" She exclaimed in surprised and teleported to the scene below.

Appearing a meter or so off the ground, she landed just as Kongou dispatched the powered suit, "I'm not sure what is going on…"

"Kongou Mitsuko." The very proper girl stated with a slight twirl of her fan.

"…Kongou-san, but we need to get out of here."

Miyuki grabbed her phone and called for a cab while Kongou got Misaka's arm over her shoulder and hoisted her up to a standing position. Misaka groaned and struggled to open her eyes.

For a moment, through heavily lidded eyes she regarded Kongou before unconsciousness took her again.

Between the two of them, they got Misaka to the road a block down to a cross street where after a few minutes a cab arrived.

"Hospital, district seven, a certain, very distinct one… I'm sure you know it." Miyuki said to the cab driver as she scanned her bank card against the meter.

The cab driver nodded and sped off as cabbies are wont to do.

* * *

It took very little time for the others to arrive. Kongou gave her account of what she saw to Saten and Uiharu as they briefly paused, but Shirai barely gave her a glance before teleporting through the door and to her onee-sama's bedside.

Kongou remained outside the room with a certain chagrined doctor. In the room as the others crowded around or near the bed Misaka was resting in, Miyuki leaned up against the wall and quietly made a call.

"Yuko-chan? I might need your help with something. Standby, I'll call when I know more."

Miyuki focused on what was going on and caught the middle of Misaka's admission.

"…and led Therestina right to the children I found. And now, they're all gone. The fault is entirely on me. Which is why I'm going to stop that woman." Pushing away from Kuroko, she began heading towards the exit of the room, "Stand aside, Kuroko."

Saten intercepted her before she reached the alcove with the door, placing her arm against the wall as a block.

"Saten-san?"

"Misaka-san, what is it you see in your eyes right now?"

The question gave Misaka pause and she blinked, briefly hesitating before questioning the other girl, "What do I see? Well, you, Saten-san."

A few moments passed in silence before a thought dawned on Misaka. She turned back, looking over her shoulder at the others in the room. A sense of understanding and regret washed over her.

"I…" She began, but faltered.

Kuroko sighed looking down briefly.

Misaka continued, "I'm sorry. I… somehow lost sight of everything." Bringing her left hand to her face, she covered her eyes in shame, "I've made more trouble for all of you again."

"It isn't any trouble." Stated Saten, "But I'd rather struggle together with you than worry about you from a distance. After all, that's what a friend does, isn't it?"

Uiharu brightened up with Saten's words, "sh… she's right! You've got us, here, too!"

Kuroko nodded in agreement.

Miyuki was a little uncomfortable as she felt like she really shouldn't be here, but nodded when Misaka's gaze drifted her way.

Misaka smiled and felt a small bit embarrassed by all the words, "Thanks, everyone."

Saten was not finished though and with a voice of authority addressed her closest friend and classmate, "Okay, you're next, Uiharu!"

Both Uiharu and Shirai looked towards her in surprise.

"Apologize to Shirai-san! Tell her you're sorry for your poor attitude all this time!" Saten ordered.

Misaka gave her a very surprised and exasperated look, but Saten was unperturbed.

Uiharu stumbled over her words, "H… hold on, Saten-san…"

Saten was on a roll and not to be restrained, "You too, Shirai-san! Please tell Uiharu you're sorry for slapping her!"

So surprised, she could not utter a word in question and instead merely resorted to pointing to herself in a small amount of disbelief.

The two looked at one another and Uiharu was the first to speak with Shirai after her.

"I… I'm sorry, Shirai-san."

"I am sorry."

During this exchange, unknown to the others, but observed by Miyuki, Kongou had slipped into the room.

"So? Don't you have something to say to me?" Kongou faux-haughtily inquired.

Misaka cheerfully smiled, "Thank you Kongou-san."

This caused a very enthusiastically cheerful reaction from Kongou, which she unsuccessfully tried to conceal behind her fan. Flustered, she replied, "I… it is quite all right."

Miyuki cleared her throat, "As lovely as all this is, we have a mission… so to speak… to undertake."

The others began strategizing and Kongou contacted a taxi for everyone to return to the Judgment office.

Back at the branch office, Uiharu was on her computer and searching of all information available as she also entered a conference call that Shirai established.

Shirai also was on her laptop having established a voice and video session from here communication app to Anti-Skill.

"Like I said, it is now plainly evident that Therestina Kihara is taking illegal action!"

Yomikawa looked to be rather annoyed at this point, "We've known that there was something fishy about her outfit, too. We're looking into…"

Shirai cut her conversation off, "We do not have time to be taking this easy! Please, do something!"

"We can't make our move that easily. There are limits to what we can do, too."

This excuse was far from what Shirai wanted to hear and she grit her teeth in frustration.

Bumping into Shirai, Saten inserted herself into the conversation, "Isn't there meaning in 'how to overcome your limits'?!"

"It's you, from the workshop…"

"You told me that when you give up, saying you can't do any more, you're finished, didn't you?! As it stands, the children are at risk!"

Yomikawa was surprised by the words and also shamed. With a sigh she averted her eyes, "Give me a bit of time."

Within a few minutes, a link was established with Anti-Skill's main systems and authorization was granted to Branch 177 to receive surveillance information.

"I'm receiving satellite surveillance data from Antiskill. The MAR trailers are on Urban Expressway Five, just passing the School District Eighteen third interchange." Uiharu reported

With everyone having riceballs for a snack, after all, one cannot go on a mission without fuel, they gathered around one of the dual conference touch screens observing the satellite data.

"Route Five is one that leads to School District Seventeen, right?" Asked Misaka.

"District Seventeen?" Asked Saten.

Shirai also added to the list of questions, "Why are they going there?"

Uiharu answered the question, "Kihara Gensei had a private laboratory there."

Misaka, as she was viewing the scene caught sight of something she recognized, "Here. Can you zoom in on what's following behind the trailers?"

"Hai… eh?"

The zoom provided a perfect overhead view of a particular blue Lamborghini Gallardo.

Miyuki almost dropped her riceball, "Oh! Stripper lady!"

At the same time, Uiharu exclaimed, "Doctor Kiyama!"

"Geez, how can she go after them all alone? Don't go taking all of this on yourself!" Misaka commented.

Both Saten and Shirai levelled very serious, incredulous looks at Misaka.

"Onee-sama, is that an invitation for me to make some snide remark?"

Misaka jumped at that, staring surprised at her kouhei, "Huh?"

"You two are surprisingly birds of a feather, aren't you?" Saten sarcastically added.

Uiharu and Miyuki merely smiled knowingly.

Misaka tried to defend herself, albeit weakly, "Th… that's not true."

"So, what should I be doing here?" Inquired Kongou.

Shirai levelled an unamused gaze at Kongou, "Are you still here?"

"We can't fight on an empty stomach. Now, eat up!" Konori added.

Grabbing their fill, the group headed out. The others began discussing their movement plan, with Konori taking Uiharu and Saten on her bike. This left Misaka in the care of Shirai, with Miyuki to keep up with the expert teleporter as best as she could.

As they prepared, Miyuki pulled out her phone and made a quick call, "Yuko-chan, I'm sending you the information on the positions. Have Kana take the others and head off the group G that is moving to reinforce E that Antiskill has just made contact with."

* * *

A lone girl stepped out of a taxi at the base of the service causeway that led up to the Expressway. She held her phone up to her ear and a strawberry pocky in her mouth like a thug might a cigarette.

"I'll take care of them, it'll be a snap. They just got HsPS-15s, they used to have me spar against those models with my powers when I was an early stage Level three."

Closing her phone and placing it in her pocket, Yuko stepped out onto the near-empty Expressway. Only she, a few MAR trucks, and about six power suits and four support personnel with light automatic weapons were present.

One of the grunts in light armor and carrying a submachine gun noticed the middle schooler step out onto the concrete.

"Oi, little girl you're not supposed to be here." The MAR officer sneered, "Step off or you might get knocked down."

Yuko smiled, "Funny, that is what I was going to say."

With a TK assisted leap, Yuko sprang right at the closest HsPS-15 suit and landing with concentrated telekinetic force that sent shockwaves through the air and shaking the raised expressway itself.

* * *

Misaka, using her ability to generate a massive burst of electromagnetic force, charged with electricity, knocked aside both MAR trucks just narrowly allowing Kiyama's car to make it between the two flipped vehicles.

The force generated carried Misaka the remaining distance to where the blue car had stopped, with Shirai appearing next to her.

Only seconds behind the pair, Miyuki appeared in the air above the crashed trucks and exclaimed, "Carnival dayo!"

A dozen small, firecracker like missiles streaked down towards the trucks detonating in fiery explosions. She disappeared only to reappear with Misaka and Shirai, striking a pose with her arms crossed despite the fact that the others were not doing the same.

"Geez, I don't know what your idea of fun is." Stated Misaka.

Shirai replied offhandedly, "Just a fancy little trick."

Miyuki shrugged, "Eh, I do what I can."

"What do you think you're doing?!" Yelled Kiyama, "What are you three doing here? What the hell are you…"

Her rant was interrupted by the arrival of a motorcycle with three riders.

Uiharu spoke with a sense of extreme urgency, "Kiyama-sensei! Those trucks are decoys!"

"The children aren't in them." Added Saten.

Kiyama was confused by this, "They're not? Huh?"

As the two girls loaded into Kiyama's car, under her protest, Miyuki muttered to herself as she pulled out her phone, "Come to think of it, I forgot to tell Yuko to limit the property damage."

She was about to make the call as the blue car went speeding off, but was interrupted by Shirai's warning to Misaka. Turning, she spied the armored suits, with heavy looking canister rifles emerging from the wreckage.

Misaka readied her electrical attack, arcs dancing between both palms, "Well now, you'll have to face me…"

Making matters worse, from their left rose up a pair of MAR modified SH-60 Seahawk helicopters. Another pair of helicopters arose on their right as well, but only Miyuki took note of this as Shirai, Misaka, and Konori were fixated on the two closest.

Misaka and Shirai nervously looked on at these new dangerous arrivals. Just as the rotary cannon began to spin up, a truck rocketed through the air striking both helicopters, downing them with a single blow.

 _At least the trucks aren't flying at me._ Thought Miyuki as she used a high intensity, focused light beam to cut through the main rotor shafts of the other two helicopters to their right.

Kongou Mitsuko had revealed herself and Kuroko had teleported Misaka onto the back of Konori's motorcycle.

With those two off to assist the others, the three remaining focused on the fight against this MAR detachment.

* * *

Some distance ahead as Therestina engaged with Misaka and Kiyama in a high speed battle, Yuko studied the situation with a borrowed MAR tablet and communications headset.

Down the road she could see the dust and debris of the fight rising into the air. Judging by the approaching speed, she had a few minutes to prepare. Judging by the routes they would need to take to reach School District twenty-three, they would need to use this interchange. Using TK she positioned herself up on the high side wall looking out over the expressway.

Over the radio, she heard Therestina calling out to a 'Yellow Marble' group as she had to Brown earlier, though this one came direct to her headset causing an 'Attention' popup on the tablet she was using.

Clearing her throat, Yuko responded, "I'm sorry, they can't come to the phone right now, but if you'd like to come over here, _I'll knock that smug grin off your face for what you've done_ … oh, beeeeeeep."

Yuko grinned wickedly at the face Therestina made on the tablet screen at her comment. Before chucking it as hard as she could with Telekinesis at the approaching yellow mechanized suit. Her aim was good as it shattered harmlessly against the unit's 'head'.

With the wind rustling her clothes and tossing her corkscrew pigtails around, she crossed her arms and grinned at the occupants of the blue car and Misaka on its roof. With a wink, she launched herself off the wall with telekinetic force right at the oncoming mech.

Therestina spat angrily at the small nuisance and quickly deployed the rear mounted utility arm to intercept the 'flying girl'.

Yuko's fist, shielded by her specific kline-bottle style telekinetic field, impacted with the utility arm cratering and buckling the reinforced steel. Most of the kinetic energy her kline-bottle storage had built up during her fight with the MAR units was released at that moment, rendering the attachment arm useless.

Therestina sighed and jettisoned the damaged unit and Yuko with it, as she used her panel to swap her reserve grapple arm from storage.

Yuko hit the ground with the remains of the arm and rolled a few meters away. She came up to a crouch with an angry huff. Quickly she used her telekinesis to grab one of the normal MAR rifles and sighted the yellow mech, taking aim at where the head would be.

In Yuko's peripheral vision, a motorcycle with three… no two riders zoomed past. Seeing as they were friendly she resumed her aiming at Therestina and just as she was about to take a shot, a hand gripped her shoulder.

"That is enough Yuko-chan." Miyuki said in a concerned tone.

Dipping the rifle and engaging the safety, Yuko sighed, "Okay, but I had a clear shot. I could have made it."

"I know, but this is not how we are doing this. Plus I do not think that could penetrate…"

Yuko chuckled, "You'd be surprised how much gap mechanized units have between parts, especially when they aren't military suits."

The loud sonic boom and ionization trail through the sky signaled Misaka had just used a larger scale projectile in her railgun then normal.

With a nod between the two of them, Miyuki took Yuko's hand and the two of them teleported several times in the direction the others had gone.

They appeared just as Misaka and Shirai gave each other a high five as the yellow mech lay in a heap behind them.

* * *

At the Facility in District Seventeen, the team had a moment's rest after their last fight with the remaining MAR forces stationed here.

Uiharu and Kiyama worked at the computer in the operations center, while the others rested and looked on. Kuroko was chastising Misaka for going all out the MAR operatives. A conscious captive would have gone far towards gaining access to the systems.

Yuko examined Miyuki's left ankle as the older girl cringed, "It's not broken, probably just sprained Miyu-neesama. And this is why you don't kick power armor."

"I forgot to put up my field, I wasn't thinking straight… getting a bit tired what with all this fighting."

Yuko chuckled, "Maybe you should work out more, less sweets."

"I got it!" Uiharu exclaimed. "In this facility, there's only one area where power consumption is especially high, the lowermost block.

The schematics showed the location as well as its connection to the main central shaft with a central lift between floors as well as two main sets of stairs. Judging by the condition of Shirai and Misaka, the lift was the best option, which also had the plus of opening up right into the room they needed.

After quite a number of floors, the group exited onto the lowermost laboratory area. Without a word, Kiyama walked straight to the observation safety railing and looked down into the recessed area below.

"I found you." Was her comment, simple in words, but profound in emotion.

Uiharu ran straight for the one capsule on this level and in finding Haruue, she pounded on the clear shielding attempting to rouse her sleeping friend, "Haruue-san! Haruue-san! Haruue-san!"

Yuko busied herself examining the capsule, looking for panels or linkages that would indicate where the controls were located.

The young girl heard the slightly distant tapping noise in the silence of her capsule. With supreme effort, she forced her eyes open. A fuzzy shape slowly resolved to that of her new friend Uiharu Kazari.

"Haruue-san!" Uiharu said, with much relief in her voice, "Uh, where is the system panel for this thing?"

Looking around quickly, Saten pointed towards one of the side hallways, "Chotto matte. I'll go look over there."

"Onegai shimasu!"

Kuroko and Mikoto shared a brief smile, it was finally the end and things were looking up.

Miyuki, leaning on a makeshift crutch she had fastened out of metal from the railing nodded to the two Tokiwadai girls. _Nothing to worry about, they will figure it out. Nothing will go wrong…_

Kiyama's resolve was iron tight, "Just sit tight. We'll help you out now…"

A piercing tone cut the relatively still air of the room. The effect was immediate, Uiharu cried out in pain and covered her ears in a vain attempt to block the shrill tone.

Kiyama-sensei looked about in worry, the briefest bit of panic setting in, "Hey, are you all right?"

Miyuki, Kuroko, and Mikoto were grimacing in pain, unable to focus or think. Yuko was similarly effected as she leaned against Haruue's capsule. Only Haruue, seemed unaffected.

Yuko, with a wince, tapped on the glass to get Haruue's attention. With the girl looking at her, Yuko pointed to her ears and mouthed, " _Do you hear a tone_?"

Haruue, after a moment, got the gist of it and shook her head negative.

Meanwhile Misaka struggled against the effects of the auditory assault, "That sound…"

"What is this…" Miyuki gritted her teeth in pain, "I… can't… focus…"

Misaka recognized the sound, she encountered it recently at the MAR headquarters and in the past as well, "It can't be…"

With the majority distracted by the Capacity Down, Therestina made her presence known, "Why, you… filthy little brats!"

Misaka turned to see the battered and crazed face of their most recent adversary, "No way… It's you…!"

Sometimes Miyuki can't help herself in stressful situations, "Really, that's your best line Mikoto-chan?"

With all the tact of a textbook sadist, Therestina leered at the youths, "This is for earlier!"

Therestina swung her odd umbrella-like metal weapon, brutally striking Misaka square in the back and knocking her and Shirai several meters to the ground near the wall.

Miyuki staggered a step back, "w… wait, there were a lot of earliers… maybe you could be more specific?"

Therestina did not even blink as she swung the metal weapon into Miyuki's midsection throwing her towards the opposite wall.

"Shirai-san! Misaka-san! Ayankoji-san!" Uiharu called in concern.

Kiyama-sensei charged straight towards Therestina, "Why, you…!"

The woman in the powered suit smirked and delivered a nasty body blow with her weapon to the relatively defenseless doctor.

Yuko fumbled around in her pockets searching for the one thing that she hoped would help stave off the Capacity Down. It stood to reason that the device worked on sound, perhaps she could counter that sound with another. Finding Becci's MP3 player, she clipped it to the inside of her vest pocket and fumbled with the ear buds.

With most of the others down, Therestina took a moment of respite to cackle like a madwoman, because well… she was a madwoman, that's what they do.

"Ah, that felt good!" She admitted, "Make me look like a fool, will you?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Uiharu spied Saten in the entryway spoiling for a fight she could not win. In pain though she might be, she was a little less affected then the others and was already formulating her strategy.

"This is Capacity Down, right? The sound that only afflicts espers, like Misaka-san mentioned!"

Therestina rolled her eyes, "What's your problem? Even if you know what it is, what can you do about it?"

Focusing on Therestina and careful not to draw attention to Saten, she continued to draw out her strategy, "I remember her saying the upgraded version was big, and the fixed speakers could not be moved!"

"Yeah, but they've been placed throughout the facility." She began approaching Uiharu, "Would you like to go around and destroy them, one by one?"

Yuko carefully fitted the ear buds in her ears and shakily stood up as the madwoman slowly approached their location.

Uiharu continued despite the pain, "For a system to be as big as this, it would limit where its control center could be! From what I've seen of the inside of this facility… the only place that could be… is where we just were… the central control room!"

Therestina backhanded Uiharu, "In that case, do your worst. That is, if you can!"

Saten made a hard choice, one of the hardest she would need to make, and took off running towards the stairs.

"Sheesh, what a gabby little brat you are." Kihara turned towards the only one still standing, "Oh, you. I owe you one for earlier as well."

Yuko tensed as Kihara's attention was placed on her. She hit the play button on the player and put the volume way up.

 _Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah  
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah  
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah  
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah_

 _Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting_

Yuko grinned, _oh Becci, you are so weird._ The music did interfere with the tone of Capacity Down, but it was still there and it limited her a bit, but it was better than nothing.

 _Those kicks were fast as lightning_

Therestina swung her metal umbrella-thing and Yuko, nearly at the last second brought her left hand up in an almost lazy block. The weapons struck a very visible interposing field of Telekinetic force.

 _In fact, it was a little bit frightening_

"What, how can…"

Yuko did not give her time to think and immediately moved in to strike, putting quick fist strikes using limited TK to force Therestina back.

 _But they fought with expert timing_

Yuko's size and the limited use of her ability was a bit of a disadvantage, but she made up for it with determination. She wasn't going to win this fight, but she needed to buy time.

Therestina hazarded a glance and saw the other little espers were still down and under Capacity Down's influence. Something was off, this annoying little girl fought like a greased ferret. Her own movements looked clumsy in comparison and it was starting to anger her to extremes. That's when she saw it.

Yuko leaped up putting the heel of her foot into Kihara's chin with a jumping snap kick.

Therestina reeled back and stopped to spit a bit of blood out of her mouth and brought her head back around with a feral grin. Yuko was dancing back and forth from foot to foot in the same stance she had used to fight the one mercenary in that warehouse last week.

Therestina feigned forward word with a lunge of her weapon. Yuko ducked under the strike and stepped into the taller and older woman's reach and drove her fist strikes into the abdomen area of the suit.

Therestina had anticipated this and her right hand darted forward in a jab like motion to which Yuko side stepped and prepared to strike at the suit's knee when she froze.

The high pitched whine of the Capacity Down filled her ears and broke her concentration. To which Therestina capitalized on, driving her knee into the young girl's stomach, doubling her over.

Cruelly, she smashed her down into the ground with her metal weapon. Kicking her again just to spite her as she crushed the earbuds in her hand, dropping them on Yuko's head, "Sheesh, annoying brat. And here, I'm about to show you something fantastic, the completion of the ability crystal."

"Why? You're a victim of this, too, aren't you?" Misaka asked as she dragged herself to her feet behind Kihara.

Miyuki crawled her way towards Yuko, previous fatigue and recent injuries had her out for a few minutes, but now she was concerned for her downed petite soeur. The verbal banter continued between the others, she paid it little mind until Therestina revealed her goal.

"The right to produce a Level Six!"

Everyone was stunned by this revelation. Miyuki risked a brief scan of the container in the madwoman's hand and received an odd result, but that wasn't important now and she filed it for later. She gently shook Yuko, receiving a small groan for her efforts.

The others were struggling against Kihara, but with the Capacity Down Misaka could not generate any amount of electromagnetic force greater than a few sparks and was held up by the strange weapon of Kihara.

Kiyama received a nasty kick for her wild charge. Things were looking grim as Kihara gave her egotistical speech about everyone being her guinea pigs.

A sound like someone bumping a mic responded over the speakers as a voice filled them, "Guinea pig or not, I don't really give a damn!"

"There's another one of you kids? How can she move?" Therestina asked in a panic.

Saten yelled over the PA, "You keep your hands… off my friends!"

A resounding smash ended the Capacity Down's effects, bringing a much need relief. A strategically placed spike damaged the suit's hand, causing Therestina to drop the First Sample.

Misaka used her electromagnetism to pull Therestina into the air and with a little help from Yuko with a telekinetic assisted leap, Miyuki used a gravity assisted punch to drive the powersuit wearing woman into the far wall.

Miyuki appeared next to Yuko clutching her hand, "forgot to put up my field, this is going to bruise."

Therestina cackled from her impact zone, "Fine, then. All right. I'm going to blow you all away, along with this whole facility!"

She raised her strange umbrella-like weapon threateningly. It opened revealing a single focusing barrel and multiple rods. "I built this after analyzing your ability! It's even more powerful than your railgun!"

Unphased, Misaka calmly produced a single coin, "Geez, guinea pigs and livestock… how much do you have to pity yourself to redirect that much resentment onto others?"

Kihara continued to rant her own rhetoric of hate, but it was Misaka's words that were heard over those.

"Academy City is the best place which will allow us to be who we are. I can do things here together with everyone else that I could not do on my own. And that… is mine, and mine alone!"

The two blasts of electromagnetic force met perfectly in the middle, both briefly struggling to push forward. It was, however, Misaka's determination that added just that much power to overwhelm Therestina's created weapon and end this cruel scenario once and for all, leaving Therestina unconscious in the wreck of her armor with her shattered Case

It was then left to the work of the scientist, using the First Sample, to initiate her program to safely bring the children out of their comas and back to the waking world.

The swirl of emotions and relief when first Banri and then the others spoke and began to stir. Even Miyuki had to put aside her childish anger at Kiyama-sensei at seeing the genuine relief and tears.

Kiyama stood straight tears still streaming down her face, "Let me say it for real this time."

"Huh?" Inquired a surprised Misaka.

"Arigato."

Misaka blushed and shifted her eyes upward in embarrassment for a moment before making eye contact with Kiyama with a smile.

* * *

After words and notes:

Not too much to add to this one other than a few clarifications. Shidarezakura Academy has two separate Open houses, the first is the Garden Dorm inside the Garden of Education with the External dorm being last.

* * *

Moshi moshi - how Japanese answer the phone.

gomen nasai - I'm sorry.

Mou - an expression of frustration

Hai - yes

kouhei - the junior member in the senpai/kouhei relationship

Carnival dayo - it's a carnival

Kline bottle - look it up.

Chotto matte - wait a moment

Onegai shimasu - a polite way of saying 'please'

Arigato - Thank you


	5. Just Another Day

Author's note:

This chapter is a transition between the Poltergeist Arc and Sisters Arc. It is one of the few times everyone will be together for anything in these stories. The use of given names, except in dialogue, is used mainly to illustrate a more casual and familiar atmosphere. The title is 'Just Another Day' and it carries no special meaning, other than ironically (even considering what happens at the end) it is just another day for Academy City.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Chōdo mō tsuitachi

Kana pushed the throttle all the way forward as she twisted the control stick towards her left. "This last part is tricky, so follow my movements exactly, Lightning." She grinned devilishly, _Those Tokiwadai girls will never expect this maneuver._

Fumiko's voice crackled over the headset, "Roger that Heavy Metal."

Kana's craft pulled a perfect one hundred and eighty degree rotation using powerful veneer thrusters before its main ion engines roared to life sending the medium fighter-bomber barreling down an icy tunnel barely wider than the craft's wingspan.

Right on her heels, Fumiko's heavy fighter, pulled a similar maneuver. A slight ping on her team tactical interface registered a slight dip in the other craft's wing integrity.

"Tighten up your formation, Lightning, this ice planetoid's walls will rip your wings to shreds."

"I got it, I got it, Kana…"

"Heavy Metal! Call signs, _Lightning_ , this OP is strictly professional. Now tighten up, you are fifteen seconds behind and we need very specific timing on this."

"… Roger that, Heavy Metal."

The ice tunnel slowly straightened out revealing an odd sight. The passage forward opened into a small gap in space where the other half of the pathway was rotating rather quickly. The ice planetoid had split at some point and one half of it was rotating differently than their current part. With maneuvering based on practiced skill and honed reflexes, 'Heavy Metal' entered the gap and matched the rotation perfectly before entering the last leg of their icy shortcut.

'Lightning', despite a rocky start at the beginning, matched her wing leader's movements near precisely and entered the next part of the tunnel smoothly.

"Nice Job Lightning! Just as soon as we exit the tunnel we are going to change heading and hit full throttle. We'll get the jump on those girls as they start their trench run and it's all over."

'Heavy Metal' was grinning like a fool as her craft exited the tunnel and she began to wing-over to get into position. That smile was quickly lost as her front screen was lit up with plasma fire, "What! Noooooo…"

The explosion was glorious.

The VR pod had barely opened as Kana 'Heavy Metal' Fujiko burst out onto her own two legs glaring down a certain small girl who herself was just exiting her own VR pod, "How did you even get there…?"

Kuroko held up her hand and opened her mouth to speak, but another stepped forward to answer for her.

"I, Kongou Mitsuko, chose the vibro-mine field as the most efficient means to get the drop on you two."

Kuroko rolled her eyes, "we maneuvered through the field using my carefully planned route and were in a perfect position to hit you as you came out. I calculated the ice tunnel run would be your best choice to get the drop on us _if_ we used the typical strategy and took the trench to hit your base."

Fumiko "Lightning" Akamatsu laughed uproariously at Kana's dumbfounded expression.

Kana shook her head and stared directly at Kuroko, "You must be a born natural at this kind of thing Shirai-san."

Kuroko blushed and waved her hand dismissively, "maa, maa I am not a natural or anything, but what I do have is a very specific set of skills…"

At that moment, the voice of a very boisterous chestnut haired girl echoed through the game center, "No way! How do you get a headshot with a Gauss Cannon from a klick out?"

Another, quieter and somewhat more proper sounding voice answered the exclamation, "Ara ara, Misaka-san. It is not any big thing really."

"It's a mecha! One does not merely snipe the head of a mecha at a kilometer with an electromagnetic cannon." Mikoto stated as she and Miyuki entered from the tournament VR pod area. "I should know." Mikoto exaggerated her upward toss of a very familiar arcade token.

"Just luck I guess." Miyuki replied innocently.

Mikoto scratched at her hair as she replied, "mou, if it wasn't for Saten's death from above on Sonoda, you would have swept us. That. Is. Not. Luck."

Miyuki continued to dodge Mikoto's verbal inquires as their other two teammates walked behind them.

Yuko and Ruiko looked to one another and shrugged, "It's nice to do just kid things huh? No big bad guys threatening all conscious thought in Academy City and all that."

Ruiko snickered a bit at that, "Yeah, I could get used to this."

"Saten-san!" Exclaimed Kazari as she collided with Ruiko in a tight hug.

This lasted a good few minutes without letting up causing Ruiko to blush a bit and scratch the back of her head a bit nervously, "W…what's up Uiharu?"

With no answer from Kazari, Ruiko turned her attention to the other two girls that had followed her.

Rebecca sighed, "Uiharu apparently doesn't do well with zombies. And well, the new VR zombie apocalypse is perhaps a little too realistic."

The gray-silver haired, newest member of the Shidarezakura quintet, making it a sextet, nodded vigorously, "it was so amazing! I could have head-shot zombies all day." Benio giggled while she used both hands like a gun and mimed shooting multiple times.

Everyone except Yuko, who was admiring her stance and form – despite merely miming was actually correct, sweatdropped at the girl's enthusiasm.

Mikoto laughed a bit nervously at Benio's antics, "Anyways, thanks everyone for accompanying me today." Mikoto shifted her gaze to Kuroko, "some people think my ideas for fun are not lady-like for someone in my position."

"Onee-sama, you are the Ace of Tokiwadai, there are more dignified activities…"

Mitsuko twirled her fan to partially conceal her face and gave a slightly arrogant sounding laugh, "Oh Shirai-san, it seemed you were having a rather fun time in the simulators."

Kuroko waved off the comment by Mitsuko, "It was very useful from the standpoint of a tactical exercise. And why are you here again Kongou-san?"

While the two argued, Miyuki turned back towards Mikoto, "I should really be thanking you as well. We got off to, a 'rocky start', as they say. Back to the topic on hand though, when you started, it looked like you wanted to say something else."

Mikoto nodded, "Yeah, I was hoping we might all go out to get something to eat… nothing fancy, just Joseph's a normal place."

Ruiko gave a thumbs up for her and Kazari, who still clung to her.

Miyuki regarded her friends who all nodded in agreement, "Sure Misaka-san, let's go."

After extracting Kuroko and Mitsuko from their verbal fencing match, the group exited the game center and headed for the closest Joseph's in their area.

Some distance down the road, a couple of blocks from their destination, a happenstance glance down an alleyway by Ruiko spied a large group of street toughs surrounding another.

Ruiko stormed down the alley shouting, "Oui! What do you all think you are doing?"

The largest, and toughest of the group turned towards the Sakugawa middle school student and scoffed, "mind your own business, little girl, just messing up some punk esper. Unless you want to be next, take a hike."

The sound of twisting and tearing metal accentuates the entrance of the next speaker, "a bunch of guys against one, not very good odds, let's even it up." Kana tossed the metal bat she had just formed from a portion of a building's fire escape to Ruiko, "I hear you like bats."

"These guys just never learn." Stated Mikoto with faux disappointment, whisps of electricity arcing off her bangs.

"I know, _shocking_ , isn't it?" Fumiko quipped as she formed her arc blade.

Miyuki facepalmed, "this is why I can't take you guys anywhere Fumi-chan. We can't go around using bad one-liners, the villains do that… we aren't those types."

As Yuko wordlessly stepped up, assuming her typical ready-stance, as well as Mitsuko with her fan at the ready, the displays of esper powers were rather daunting. All of it swirling around behind a rather smugly grinning Ruiko who twirled her new bat about in a practiced fashion.

"How about you all take a hike?" Ruiko shouldered her bat and gestured over her shoulder, "Unless you want to tangle with us?"

Behind the other girls, Rebecca and Kuroko joined the group. Kuroko was casually tossing some football sized random piece of metal in one hand while Rebecca slipped on her headphones. Their late entrance seemed to be due to some distraction back from where they all had come.

Near the entrance to the alleyway, Kazari and Benio looked on. Kazari was on her phone and Benio was keeping a lookout.

The group of street thugs looked uncertain, except for their leader who casually reached in his pocket and produced a remote. He pressed the large button on it with a wry smile, "Let's see how much you girls like our little surprise."

Mikoto winced briefly before blinking in confusion when no ear splitting sound issued forth from somewhere near them.

Kuroko's chuckle broke the brief confused silence, "Your Capacity Down will not work without all the parts." She illustrated her point by tossing up the random piece of equipment she had procured before joining the rest of the group.

A shot rang out, striking the object in midair, "You just sighed your death warrants, we don't need that to take you little rich girls out." One of the smaller thugs yelled as held and gestured with his revolver like he was in some rap video.

A spike appeared in the gun, jamming its vital components. Kuroko sighed looking sideways towards Mikoto, "I seem to have misplaced my Judgment armband, I will just be a moment. A lot can happen in a moment."

Mikoto and the others grinned, and a lot did indeed happen as Kuroko slowly slipped on her arm band.

"This is Judgment! Oh my, they all seem to have fallen down. Not too much collateral damage this time onee-sama."

Mikoto scratched the back of her head as she grinned, "I have no idea what you mean Kuroko. Anyways, how did you know to look for a Capacity Down?"

"Well, Ayanokoji-san's one friend, Tanizaki-san is an Audiokinetic, which I learned earlier and on a hunch asked her to look for the low frequency emissions from active stereo. She found one, I teleported and disabled it, and we both joined the confrontation.

Miyuki nodded appreciatively, "Thinking three moves ahead. You would make a dangerous villain Shirai-san."

Kuroko waved that off, "I am a white knight, not a black knight Ayanokoji-san."

Kazari and Benio came running down the alleyway towards the group, "Anti-Skill is here."

Yuko and the others watched over the knocked-out and otherwise restrained thugs. The younger girl examined the area where the thugs were harassing had been and found nothing. Nearby a collapsed heating grate drew her attention, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her from proceeding.

"What's wrong Yuko-chan? Anti-Skill is here and we need to make our statements." Miyuki, now prominently wearing her Judgment armband, inquired.

Yuko shook her head, "It's nothing Miyu-neesama, it's just that the boy they were attacking is not here. I guess he ran off in the confusion."

Meanwhile, just beyond the light from the broken grate, a young man groaned. In the ensuing fight, the one thug had thrown him into a grate that had buckled beneath him. He found himself in some sort of heat exhaust or utility serviceway.

Just as he began to stagger towards the opening out, a hand clamped over his mouth while the other braced against that one to put him in a hold. A low, deep voice hissed in his ear, "don't make a sound or I'll break your neck. There's no way I'm letting Anti-Skill drag me off to jail. We are just going to wait this out and maybe once their gone, I'll let you g… gurk…"

The boy felt himself jerked backwards to land on his rear as the person grabbing him was seized by something from behind.

Warily, he shifted his gaze around behind him and found the big leader of the thugs struggling to remove some kind of black substance from around his face and neck. The stuff engulfing his head and slithering down the man's throat had a metallic sheen in the dim and reflected light.

The thug was dragged kicking into the darkness beyond a large hole in the brickwork of the serviceway. A looming mass of metallic black 'tar' slithered towards the boy. Scrambling to get away, but far too frightened to even utter a squeak, he scrambled for the broken grate and freedom.

Not more than a half-meter from the alleyway, something snagged his foot and he tripped. The boy found a black tentacle wrapped around his ankle. He kicked at it with his free foot, but this proved to be a bad decision as after a hit against it, his other foot stuck to it and was quickly engulfed. Struggling, he made a grab for the grate, but was just short of touching it. Having found his voice, he made to cry out, but a black tentacle wrapped around his mouth like a gag and an impotently struggling young man was dragged into the darkness.

As he was dragged into the pitch black, a faint and methodical hum of machinery could be heard. Deftly, the black tentacles replaced a number of bricks and masonry parts to obscure the hole.

An Anti-Skill officer examined the grate and looked inside the serviceway. Shining a light in the darkness he saw brickwork and nothing else of note, so he moved on.

* * *

Notes:

There is no significance to the games that the girls play in the game center. There is significance to the bit at the end, but that doesn't come about until the next and last story arc.


	6. Sisterhood

Author's note:

This chapter brings this arc to a close. I never did like having Yuko encounter the Sisters before Mikoto. This was a very hard chapter to write because I really, really dislike Accelerator. Yet despite how much I do not like him, this is not the last time he crosses one of my character's paths. Hopefully I don't get any flak from people that like this sociopath. I also am not a hard science guy, so if I'm glaringly wrong with stuff in this, I'll have to ask you to just roll with it.

I'm going to do a few omake, but after that I'll be taking a break from Raildex before delving into the next and last arc.

Warning: This and all the other small one off stories are O.C. centric.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Toaru Majutsu no Index_ , _Toaru Kagaku no Railgun_ , nor any of its characters.

* * *

 _Toaru no Kanpeki na Genjitsu_

Shisutāzu

Miyuki, Fumiko, and Benio stare questioningly at the trio of starry eyed Tokiwadai students that inserted themselves into Shidarezakura girls' booth at Joseph's. Miyuki mentally labelled them purple ringlet curls, flat short brown, and long ponytail black for a lack of any monikers given or care on her part. Fumiko rose to likely tell the trio off, but Miyuki's raised hand stopped her. She had seen this effect before, when she had run afoul of Shokuhou Misaki at Tokiwadai last week. These girls, for lack of a better explanation were being mentally controlled, and one was likely a vessel of communication for Shokuhou, who seems to have declined to meet again in person.

"I agreed to meet exactly on this date per my agreement with Shokuhou-san. If she is going to send messengers then I consider this agreement null and void."

Purple ringlet curls giggles girlishly, infuriatingly familiarly girlishly, before assuming a silly pose meant to be cutesy and likely off-putting, "Oh, Miyuki-chan, I am here. Just using an application of my, social power. Consider it like a video call, just with adorable kouhei."

Miyuki frowned as Fumiko spoke up, "Well if the _Queen_ isn't going to take a meeting with the _Princess_ seriously…"

Misaki's proxy giggles again, "see even you are doing it Miyuki-chan, we both can apply our leadership ability, you just do it with closer physical proximity."

The proxy girl turns leans towards Fumiko, "And a Queen is higher than a Princess you know. Though keeping with the theme, you'd likely have to be a Jack…" A sinister smile graces her lips as she shifts her gaze to Miyuki, "also known as a knave."

Miyuki places a hand on Fumiko's shoulder gently moving her back into a sitting position before speaking, "Alright _Misaki-chan_ I get it, I see what you did there. Let us just get down to business, hmmm?"

Purple ringlet curls sighs and sits back in her seat with a faux pout, "Oh fine, I can't play with Misaka-san, and you are all business. No one lets me have any fun these days."

Miyuki gestures for her to get on with it.

Taking on a determined expression, the proxy girl continues, "I have been working with a certain asset as of lately and I am having issues achieving a perfect harmonic resonance. There is an issue aligning my AIM field."

Miyuki briefly regards both her friends before raising an eyebrow in wordless reply.

Undaunted, the proxy continues, "As such I require a bit of an adjustment to my personal reality, and I happen to know you can accommodate this."

"Really? You want me to alter your personal reality?"

Quiet up until this point, Benio injects before Misaki's proxy can respond, "That seems to be a lot of trust from someone who seems to have none."

The proxy continues, not paying much mind to the other girl, "This is one of those things with interest from key members of the Board, and a certain someone, that would likely object to a sudden psychic lobotomy of the Fifth ranked Level Five."

Losing the brief bout of seriousness, Misaki had purple ringlet curls assume one of her trademarked silly poses as she spoke, "Look at it this way Miyuki-chan, you get to study my ability with your interesting little AIM Eater…"

Miyuki scoffed at the name.

"… myself and the Board move forward with the little project, and I insure another fun person is able to play."

"Play?" Inquires Miyuki.

The proxy nods, "Yes. Misaka-san is fun, but she can be such a white knight at times. Right now you need your two Level Four supporters just to bolster all your own defenses. They are their own weak links, even your little siren there with her quaint Mind Whip."

Benio narrowed her eyes as she looked about the room.

"I also have it on the _Level_ that you may have also picked up someone else's _Upper_ hand in things, as it were."

Miyuki sighed, "Alright, I get it. Still, we will have to meet in person."

* * *

Elsewhere, Yuko has spent a good portion of her day shopping. She had been looking for a replacement earphones and MP3 player for Rebecca as compensation for the one she lost during the crazy Therestina situation.

Yuko sighed, the store clerk seemed nice, but she had the feeling that the uniform is what got the reaction more than anything else. He also kept trying to sell her the most expensive unit. She had finally settled for the most functional, but very expensive one. Money wasn't much of a problem for her, as the adopted daughter of a top tier researcher. It is one of the reasons she didn't bat an eye at the kind of car Kiyama drove.

With all the frustration of the shopping experience, the middle schooler had managed to get herself turned around. She was going to be late for curfew at this rate.

While seated on a concrete bench situated around a tree and greenery planter under one of the many raised expressway bridges, Yuko spied a familiar Tokiwadai uniform.

Yuko observed the chestnut haired girl who appeared, from a distance, to be about the same size and profile as Misaka. The girl was carrying a sports bag and Yuko was fairly certain that the electromaster did not belong to any sports clubs or teams.

The girl had stopped near the entrance to a back alleyway, giving Yuko enough time to approach closer. The girl was rummaging around in her bag, and as Yuko narrowed the distance to only a few steps, it became apparent to her how worrisome this could be. If this wasn't Misaka, then she spent a good deal of team stalking a stranger from a rival school.

It was at that moment that the girl looked up and Yuko was able to clearly see that it was indeed Misaka. Relieved she greets the electromaster, "Ah, good afternoon Misaka-san. What are you doing in this area? Were you shopping too?"

Misaka gives Yuko a flat and even stare, replying in an equally even and dull voice, "This one was just about to commence with the operation, states Misaka attempting to be vague."

Yuko blinked, "That… was odd… did you…" Just as she was replying, she noticed Misaka slipping on a pair of tactical googles she was not familiar with and the girl hastily trying to conceal a familiar looking firearm in her sports bag.

With a quickness born of training, Yuko slipped around Misaka, dragging the bag into the alley, "Misaka-san, I didn't think you were into airsoft… wait… this is real?!"

Looming up behind Yuko, Misaka replies in the same dull tone, "Misaka does not know what you are talking about, says Misaka trying to be evasive."

Pushing the odd speech Misaka seemed to have been using aside, Yuko focuses on the weapon, "This is an F2000R Toy Soldier, haven't seen one of these since the program. You know, one of the things to come out of the designer soldier program I was made for was this guy here. We used the original F2K-X prototype. But what are you doing with this? Not standard issue at Tokiwadai, even for its 'Ace'."

Misaka crouches down, narrowing her eyes at Yuko, but continuing to speak with the same flat inflection, "Misaka has determined that you know the original, surmises Misaka with a knowing nod."

And nod she did, knowingly.

"Original… wait… you're an engineered being? A… clone of Misaka Mikoto?"

Misaka sighed and nodded, "Yes, this one is designated Misaka 9980. And you really must leave, an important experiment is about to begin that outsiders should not be involved in."

Yuko tilts her head to the side a bit, perplexed, "An… experiment? That doesn't sound good at all. We are literally in a dark, back alley in a less than desirable area. Many of the experiments that happen in the bright, clean, and upstanding laboratories are of questionable morality, I'd hate to think of what could be occurring here."

As if Murphy itself was taking an interest in this scene, the sound of footsteps entering the alley interrupted their conversation. A teenage male, and Yuko was guessing there as his appearance made it hard for her to tell, of pale complexion, white hair, and red eyes lazily strolled into the dimly lit area.

Noticing the clone he sighed, pausing as he noticed Yuko, but ultimately paid her little mind, "I was getting bored waiting around, you better make it worth my time for having to come look for you."

With a barely detectable change in demeanor, 9980 pushed Yuko off to the side behind a wall where the alleyway expanded and branched off to another side passage.

"Leave, Misaka urges with unconcealed panic and worry."

Not skipping a beat, 9980 grabs her F2000R, expertly readying it for firing while moving backwards to widen the engagement distance.

Yuko watched dumbfounded as Misaka 9980 opens up with long bursts of fire, cringing as the rounds impact with accuracy and precision.

However, with Yuko's trained eyes, she noticed she noticed the bullets reflecting, no, being intercepted by something. With all the live ammo flying around, Yuko erected her specific telekinetic defense, a completely encompassing, near skin tight field. The entire surface area formed one klein bottle with which Yuko used a variation of a calculation that Miyuki had developed for a stable a M-theory construct that prevented her klein array from collapsing into hypercubes. With it, she was able to exponentially increase absorption before the needed "bleed off".

Accelerator was bored, so far this encounter was shaping up to be just like the others. _Still_ , _this kid_ , he thought as he glanced sideways at the small girl, _is going to throw all this off_.

Subconsciously, as his ability was want to function, one of the rounds was directed through 9980's side with a rather dramatic spray of blood. With a gasp, 9980 collapsed to the ground and struggled to bring herself to a sitting position, but having dropped her weapon in the process.

Accelerator tsks, seeing the clone go down and lazily moves towards her, "that's that I guess."

Yuko's eyes widen and her gaze shifts towards the downed Misaka clone. She focuses on the blood and pained expression before shifting a hateful glare at the white-haired assailant.

Yuko attempts to use a focused telekinetic push to knock the albino away as she moves towards 9980. Just as she releases the force it immediately impacts her field, staggering her. The act was faster than a blink.

With a brief tactical assessment of 'he appears physically deficient', and maintenance of her field now sustained by her own attack for a few minutes, she closes the distance between the two of them and swings in front of him.

Now interposed between the clone and Accelerator, she employs her telekinesis as a force multiplier and combines it with the fast strikes of Wing Chun.

With the first hit, the boy didn't even register Yuko. With the second, he seemed bored, but the third and after he was rapidly approaching annoyed.

Yuko observed that not a single blow, be it hand strike, kick, or knee, ever struck flesh. They were barely perceptibly stopped and all the force of the blow directed right back into her. If not for her defense, she would be suffering a lot of bruising.

Her aggressive presence, more than any physical threat she represented, caused Accelerator to take a step back or else be forced to hug her in order to keep his spot. This act raised his annoyance level and changed his demeanor from passively being aware of her attacks to actively following them and using whatever ability he possessed to counter them.

With him actively countering, Yuko begins redirecting the force sent back at her right into her next strikes. Causing a spiraling force multiplier the more she attacked.

This was causing an infinite loop that was threatening to overrun her TK field. Yuko was feeling and beginning to show minor contusions and cuts as the force began to exceed her concentration. Adapting her strategy, she began venting excess pressure into her surrounding environment. This resulted in her attacks beginning to cause small earth quakes, giving her a fierce presence very fitting for Shounen manga.

Accelerator took note of the change in demeanor of the little annoyance that was in his way. The constant assault had been wearing down on her defense, he had surmised it was some type of telekinetic absorption field, with her using a TK buffer to attack, and it had been only an amount of time before this weakling would have made a mistake.

He could not figure out how his calculations were missing the variable needed to find the vector through her field. Now though, she was redirecting the excess energy into the ground and it was beginning to cause significant shaking that would be noticed and investigated.

If anything interrupted the experiment and he had to waste time redoing this, or worse yet resetting the counter due to an unknown variable, he was going to be pissed. His time was valuable and he had better things to do then stepping on cockroaches, especially repeatedly having to do so because of some wannabe hero.

Accelerator was done with the little annoyance and used his vortex wind to knock her back to the entrance of the alleyway, "beat it small fry, I don't have time to play with you. I have better things to do." He resumed his approach towards Misaka 9980.

Yuko's landing was hard, but compensated for by her field. She mutters a very unladylike curse, but stops as she notices 9980's bag. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she swipes a pistol and a couple of flashbangs from the Clone's kit.

"Hey jerk face! I'm not done with you yet!" She yells while running at him and leaping over his slow attempt at a smack or grab with his right hand.

Again between him and 9980, she tries her kicks and punches like before, but adds a couple of brutal point-blank shots at the kneecaps.

The shots get redirected and then bounced by her TK body field.

Seeing an emerging pattern, she pulls the pins on the pair of flashbangs and drops them in his face, just outside what she estimated was the close quarter's interception point for his ability.

Yuko, hoping the flashbangs buy her a moment or two, turns to grab Misaka 9980 and execute a tactical withdrawal.

The resulting effect of the flashes does nothing more than increase Accelerator's annoyance to ' _I actually have to do something_ ' levels. He uses the full force of his wind vortex on Yuko tossing her high into the air and away from him and his quarry.

Turning to the prone clone, the teen drags a hand through his hair with a small grunt of frustration, "I actually had to lift a finger to deal with that annoyance. Guess I'll just take it out on you."

To say that being thrown into the air is disorienting would be an understatement. Fighting dizziness while attempting to determine where she was, ultimately was futile and her spur of the moment decision was to maintain her TK field.

Yuko impacted with a building roof, her field mostly protects her. She struggles to redirect the impacts into the field as she crashes through a couple of floors before bouncing off a hard counter and rolling to a stop on her right side in some old tenement. She releases control of her protective shield.

She coughs a bit of blood to splatter on the ground as some of it trails from the side of her mouth to her chin. She rolls to her back, groaning in pain, and fighting to remain conscious. Everything hurts, but after a few moments of fighting she steels her will to try and stand.

She barely manages to lift herself a couple of centimeters before the world begins to spin. With her head swimming, her vision darkens and she loses the fight for consciousness. She passes out.

After what seems like a few moments, Yuko awakes with a rather abrupt start. Fighting a pounding in her head, she forces herself to stand despite dizziness and pain.

Through the haze her a little voice in her mind takes charge, _assess!_

The training from her past kicks in and she observes her surroundings before focusing on herself. Her left arm is hanging a bit oddly and hurts quite a bit. She doesn't seem to be able to move it well. Dislocated. A further examination doesn't reveal any breaks, so she can remedy this situation easily. Further assessment reveals a fair amount of bruising, some minor cuts, and she bit her tongue. Which bled into the back of her throat and caused her to aspirate a little blood as she crashed through floors and ceilings. A small bit of relief not to have broken a rib and punctured a lung. Time to remedy her arm.

Arranging her left arm as properly as she is able, she forces it back into its socket against the concrete outer wall with a quick application of pressure. Clinically, and tactically this action was taken, but she still is a young girl and as tough as she may seem, she barely bites off a scream with tears pouring down her cheeks.

 _Misaka 9980!_ A brief bit of panic rises, but she pushes it down. Steeling herself, she calmly realizes she needs to help 9980. While working out her left arm, Yuko locates the pistol, still in good shape, and carefully conceals it. Finding the outside wall she quickly looks out and determines she is on the third floor. Using her ability to repel down the side of the building, as it is easiest to just grab a large surface area than try to fly, she reaches parallel to the top of a fence. Telekinesis is again employed to pull herself to the fence, then to a pipe on the outside wall of an adjacent building, and finally to the ground further down a side passage of the alleyway.

Fueled by adrenalin, she bounds down the passage and around the corner on bursts of TK assisted movement. With her TK at the ready for another round, she finds naught of her earlier target only a singular, still form.

"No... NO!" She rushes over to the form, kneeling down, rolling it over to find the eyes lifeless, devoid of any spark. Yuko's hand shakes as her breath catches, the body is still warm and the blood is still fluid, oozing out of nearly every place it could: ears, mouth, tear ducts, nose. And such.

She feels for a pulse, nothing. _CPR, start chest compressions!_ Ignoring the blood, Yuko begins the emergency medical process. Her small hands find the place necessary to begin chest compressions only to find a lack of intact bone, the area mostly collapsed.

Yuko collapses to a sitting position in shock, a small sound like a whimper escaping her. After a moment, tears begin to flow. Then a scowl.

With a strangled cry, she smashes a hole in the ground and collapses part of the wall inward with an assisted punch.

A footstep and a splash is heard and with a quickness born of training, Yuko grabs the discarded Toy Soldier.

Rising in one motion bringing the weapon up and dead on target for the lead figure that had just entered the scene from the passage behind her. Her finger twitches on the trigger, but reflexes kick in and her finger is placed outside the guard.

Numerous identical Misakas, each bearing the distinct goggles, Tokiwadai uniforms, and identical weapons also bring them to bear on her.

One of them slowly holds up a hand, lowering her weapon, "We do not wish to engage in hostilities. We are only here for cleanup and debrief. Says Misaka 10030 in a calming and honest manner."

Yuko numbly stares a moment before she slowly points the weapon down, bringing it closer to herself before she ejects the magazine, clears the chamber of the loaded round, and engages the safety. She unceremoniously drops it to the ground and backs away from it.

"The experiments have been going smoothly up until now. States Misaka 9982."

Another one replies as they begin the processes of cleaning the scene. "Hopefully this is not the start of issues with the experiments. Adds Misaka 10031."

"Perhaps we should detain this one to prevent any future issues until we can calculate the amount of interference already present. Immediately replies Misaka 13577."

Even as shocked as Yuko was, this line of reasoning was one she did not wish to wait around for the result of.

Using her Telekinesis to propel herself up the building she partially collapsed the wall of, she lands on the second story roof where she rolls past an additional pair of clones armed with a sniper rifle and field goggles. She uses a burst of TK to push the barrel of the gun and to propel her off the opposite edge of the building.

Landing on the roof of the next building over, she uses telekinesis to leap from roof top to roof top.

The clone draws a bead on Yuko with the MX, but the other one puts a hand on the sniper's shoulder.

"We do not attack civilians. Firmly states Misaka 19090."

Yuko drops down into a quiet and concealed alleyway some distance from where the clones were. She stands shaking for a moment before falling to her knees.

She stares at nothing, her eyes focused on the nothing not even the detritus of the alley. A flash of the crumpled, still form of Misaka 9980 enters her mind's eye. A few drops strike the concrete below her and with a sniffle she looks up. A distant digital clock billboard shows the time is 08:59 PM, and somewhere in her shock her mind pushes out a detail from earlier in the day.

"R-rain wasn't scheduled till 9:00 PM. I guess even the sky is mourning for her."

A short few seconds later, at 09:00 PM on the dot, the sky opens up in earnest, the rain striking her face and adding to the stream already flowing down her cheeks.

* * *

Notes:

If you are familiar with Raildex, most Espers are geniuses. Especially those rich girls in the School Garden Academies.

Without getting too technical, Yuko is taking a constructing a klein bottle within a telekinetic field. The typical example of a klein bottle is a two-dimensional manifold, and consistent vector determination cannot be defined. Accelerator would be able to work around it, as he is likely familiar with the concept, but what he does not know is that using Miyuki's calculation she extrudes the klein bottle into 11th dimensional space. His ability fails if he cannot correctly calculate the vector. No teleporter uses telekinesis, and no telekinetic uses 11th dimensional field calculations. It is true that math facilitates everything.

So why can't your boy, Accelerator, just cream Yuko like he does angry level 5 Mikoto Misaka? Mikoto is obviously a vastly superior Esper to some OC, and the golden boy Accelerator is even more so then Mikoto. Well, Mikoto is a glass cannon, all attack and very little appreciable defense, but that is neither here nor there. Now if Yuko was a run of the mill TK user, then yes, Accelerator would toss her aside just as easily. After all, he can calculate the vector on anything he has experienced, and he has probably seen conventional TK. However his subconscious vector use, as well as his conscious vector calculations are missing a component. Her field's klein bottle mechanism is extruded into 11th dimensional space, so his calculations fall short by the eleventh dimension. So in essence he is just directing things into her shield, which absorbs it and "powers itself", really it's a net even, but Raildex breaks fundamental laws all the time. In the terms of endurance he will outlast her by far though.

Slight context note:

When Shokuhou Misaki uses Ayanokoji Miyuki's first name plus -chan, she is being deliberately disrespectful. Miyuki was very aggressive and hostile, even threatening to "carve a path through your little girl shields to get to you" when they first encountered one another. After breaking Miyuki's defense, she discovered that it was mostly a bluff, and Miyuki was genuinely scared. So Misaki has taken to teasing her about it. It is somewhat more complicated, not to mention Misaki did back down in the end and make a deal of a sorts, even offered to be useful in a sense.


End file.
